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crashandlivewrites · 11 months ago

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Spread Your Wings- Part 1

This came from some very, very horny brainrot from a porn star by the name of Manuel Ferrara and got me thinking. And writing.

Pairing: PornStar!John Price x PornStar!fem!reader

Summary: Porn wasn't your ideal career choice, but here you were. Your manager has just contacted you saying a veteran of the field has requested to work with you as he winds down his career. The only issue? You've definitely gotten yourself off to him multiple times, leaving your professionalism in question. And John, well, John's not helping the situaiton with how he treats you.

CW: MDNI 18+ content, NSFW, porn industry inaccuracies, oral (f receiving), fingering (f receiving), fantasy relationship, John being an absolute munch (duh), consent and check ins (because John is responsible in every universe)

Word Count: 4.9k

Part 2 >

Read on Ao3

It wasn’t your first career choice, nor your second, third, or fourth. In fact, if you were honest with yourself, it was never even a thought. Yet here you were, several performances into your adult entertainment career and on a steady rise with a decent paycheque along with it. But you were yet to experience a big break, one that would just allow you to feel a little more settled, give you the standing to be pickier with the roles you selected to film. And you had feeling that this next one was going to be that breakthrough.

Holding your phone in your hand, you read and re-read the message from your manager that he’d sent you earlier in the day.

Got a personal request to film with you. John Price. Details listed below.

John Price. John fucking Price. That man practically owned the porn industry. One of the most popular male actors for almost the past couple of decades. You’d be lying to yourself if you hadn’t done a deep dive or two into his repertoire of videos on long, lonely nights with a bottle of wine and some toys to accompany you. Porn was one thing. John Price porn was another. He was older, hot, and had thick, veiny, mouthwatering cock that made you squeeze your thighs together every time you saw it. But that wasn’t what had drawn you back to his videos time and time again. It was the way he seemed almost… tender. Rough, to be sure. But also, sweet.

And he wanted to film with you. You. He had only released a few videos in the past year, slowly winding down his career to instead focus on his hobbies and other interests. Or at least that’s what his team had told the media.

The document your manager had attached to the text was a simple call sheet with the basic run down of the shoot. It was nothing you hadn’t done before. In fact, it seemed vanilla in comparison to most porn, but that’s what John Price was known for. Soft sex. Romantic sex. Pussy pleasing— if you wanted to be a little crass, but that was the reason he was a massive hit with the audience. You’d also heard from other co-stars that he was incredible to work with. Charming, attentive, and made sure his partners always felt comfortable.

And he requested you?

That was the part that stunned you the most. You stared at the two names on the call sheet, his name directly next to yours under the subheading ‘cast’. You blinked, wondering if you’d imagined it. But your name remained, and you were meeting with him in— you glanced at the time and swore. Less than an hour before you had to be on site and the drive took a good twenty minutes on a good day.

Hopping into the shower, you knew you’d have time to prep on site, but there was something in you that wanted to make a good impression on your costar, craved making a good impression to someone as decorated and well-respected as John Price in the industry.

***

As your manager was walking with you to the meeting room, you realised you’d never actually met John Price before. Sure, you’d seen him around at a few work events, but he was a rare sight at social gatherings these days. You could feel the nerves bubbling underneath your skin as your manager scrolled on his phone, muttering comments under his breath as he went.

“Pretty much one of his last videos. Or at least that’s what his manager said. I’m honestly surprised he chose you over someone more well known, but it’s great for your career.” The subtle dig wasn’t missed on you, but there was some truth to your manager’s words, and you’d been thinking the exact same. Why had he chosen to work with you, someone practically unknown to him? Maybe it was a question you’d never have an answer to as you stopped outside of the door, fixing your hair unconsciously before pushing the door open.

He was already in the room, sitting next to his own manager, Kate if you remembered correctly, with the director at the head of the table. Smiling at the group, you ducked your head and mumbled a couple of apologies about being late as you hurried to your seat, directly across from him. There was a general murmur from the room acknowledging your apologies before returning to their conversations. You swallowed thickly as you raised your head, meeting his deep blue eyes as he stared at you, the corners crinkled as a wide smile stretched over his face, a smile, it seemed, that was just for you.

“Hey sweetheart, lovely to meet you. I’m John.” He spoke lowly, quietly, as though to the of you were sharing a secret. His voice was rough but soothing, exactly like it had been in all the videos you’d watched of him. Crossing your legs, you held out your hand to shake his with your own shy grin as you introduced yourself.

“It’s an honour to be working with you, John.” It wasn’t a lie. You had a lot to gain from working with him. Just having your name on the call sheet was enough to open doors for you. The director was Nikolai, who you’d never worked with before, but you knew he was a good friend of John’s. He also shook your hand before getting the meeting underway, outlying the expectations, and going over the general script. There wasn’t much to the story, like most of John’s scenes, but you weren’t complaining. Little story meant less lines to remember and John tended to improv. Next was an overall brief of safety, a rundown of yours and John’s likes and dislikes during scenes before everything started to wrap up.

Once signing the consent forms, your manager stood up, nodding to you as he collected the form along with Kate and Nikolai.

“I’ll leave you two to it.” He spoke. Your brows furrowed, feeling your heart race as you glanced over at John who shot you a warm smile.

“John prefers to talk to his scene partners one on one beforehand.” Kate explained, patting her colleague on the shoulder. “Something he’s always done. Allows you to get to know each other a little better.”

“Oh.” Your voice was small, but you nodded as the trio left the room, leaving you alone with someone you’ve gotten off to before.

“I know it’s a little unconventional, but I feel like it smooths things out for the scene.” He explains gently, pouring two glasses of water and passing one to you. “I’ve seen your work. You’re good. I liked the one you did with Johnny.” People often think that working in adult entertainment rids you of awkward modesty, but here you were, face heating and glancing away from the older man as he fully admitted to watching your scenes and was complimenting you on your performance.

Your scene with Johnny had been enjoyable, which had been a rare occurrence in your experience in the field. It was a job after all, not filled with screaming pleasure like scenes often displayed. But Johnny had made it easy, fun. Kept the mood lighthearted during the retakes and scene cuts.

“It’s probably been one of my favourites to date. Johnny was good to work with. I know you’ve worked with him before.” John nodded.

“A couple of times for threesomes and gang bangs when he was first starting out. But I stopped doing group scenes once he got on his feet. Wasn’t really my thing.” He shrugged, eyes carefully watching you even as he lifted the glass to his mouth. You hummed, pursing your lips, and interlocking your fingers. Letting out a huff, John placed the glass down and reached out, resting one of his large hands over yours, thumb caressing your knuckles.

“You’re okay, sweetheart. I know the reputation my name can bring but I assure you, anything you’re not comfortable with, it’s off the table.” Your shoulders relaxed as your head lifted, a genuine smile on your face.

“Thanks, John. I just… you’re very seasoned in the field.” You winced at the word choice, but he chuckled, standing up to walk around the table and take a seat next to you.

“With my expertise comes the ability to adjust things to my liking. It’s why I work with Nikolai. He knows how I work, lets me run the show really and works his mastery by getting the angles that make me look mildly flattering.”

“You’re flattering from all angles, John.” At the compliment, he raised his brow, eyes trailing down your body for a moment before snapping back up to yours.

“Seen my work, have you?” He teased, the smile turning cocky as he leaned back in his chair, rested his cheek on his fist. You shot him a look of your own, which answered everything. “So, you know how I tend to conduct my scenes?”

“You like to please your viewers.” You answered confidently (answering questions about your scene partners sex scenes is something both normal to want and possible to do, right? You might even get a good grade.) “Your tendency to lean towards softer sex brings in a more female-dominant audience.” The smile reaches his eyes, lighting them up in a way you found particularly charming.

“I like to please pussy. An important distinction.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “It’s why I became more selective about my scene partners.”

You were thankful your legs were already crossed over, covering the urge to squeeze your thighs together at the lowering of his tone. A question nagged in the back of your mind. Why you? But you weren’t confident enough to ask it.

“How do you want the scene to run?” You asked instead, turning the conversation back a little more professional. John shrugged.

“I like to let things flow semi-naturally. Enjoy a lot of sensual touching and kissing. I’m getting older so I don’t enjoy the rough and fast constant fucking like I used to. Also, a lot harder to keep it going for that long.” He glanced over at you out of the corner of his eye. “Besides, I find my scene partner enjoys it more when there’s a lot more sensual physical contact involved.”

“And how would you know that?” Your voice was coyer than you felt, leaning towards him as you placed your elbow on the arm rest. His head tilted the expression on his face overwhelmingly cocky as he snorted.

His voice lowered to a velvety purr. I’ve become good at reading people, sweetheart. I can tell the difference when people fake feeling good, and who’s actually into it. If I’m going to spend my time coming into a studio, I want to enjoy the day’s work, and for my partner to as well.”

The hairs on your arms stood on end as his voice lowered, his eyes boring into yours as he waited patiently for you to respond. Running your tongue along the line of your teeth, you processed his words.

“How do you know that we’ll work out, though? We’ve never worked together before. Wouldn’t it be easier doing a scene like this with someone you’re more comfortable with?”

“Sweetheart,” John shuffled forward on the chair, placing a reassuring hand on your thigh, thumb tracing over the inside of your knee. “I’ve watched your work; seen what scenes you feel more comfortable with. Had Kate speak to your manager too, to get an idea of what your preferences were. I think we’ll work out fine.”

“You asked about me?” Your eyes were fixed on where his hand rested, looking at the thickness of his fingers and swallowing.

“I like to know who I’m working with. But I also had to listen to Johnny talk about you for hours after his scene. Thought I should take the buck down a peg and show him how a real veteran pleases a lady.” His breathing was levelled and composed, the complete opposite to yours, allowing him to hear exactly how much he was affecting you. You swallowed thickly as you tried to keep some semblance of professionalism while his thumb rubbed slow circles into your thigh, and you began to worry about the state of your panties.

“It’s porn, John.” You whispered, eyes blinking rapidly as you tried to surreptitiously shift in your seat. “It’s acting, it’s a job.”

“Doesn’t have to be, sweets. Who says you can’t enjoy your work? Especially when you’re good at it, huh?” His smile broadened as he lifted his free hand to smooth over the bristles of his thick beard. Squeezing your thigh one last time before standing up, cupping your chin to ensure your head follows his movements.

“You can back out at any time. Just say the word. But until then, I’ll see you in 30 on set, yeah? You’ll find your uniform in your change-room.” Two fingers tapped your cheek before he stepped out of the room, leaving you alone, hot, and bothered. Thank fuck for the change of clothes. Hopefully you wouldn’t soak through these panties as well, but after all, it is porn.

Taking a bit of time to freshen yourself up, you stood, staring down at the so-called ‘uniform’ John had told you about. A thin satin slip nightdress with some lacy white underwear, bra foregone. You couldn’t help but feel your heart in your throat at the thought of John specifically picking out the piece with you in mind. Surely, he’d done this with all of his costars.

As you thought back to each of his videos, trying to recall what each of them had been wearing, unwarranted jealousy filled your head instead and you squeezed your eyes tight. He was a costar. Nothing more. This was his job. He was many years your senior. It was silly, childish, and petty to get jealous over the other people he’d slept with, especially professionally. But he’d chosen you to film with, and that stirred some primal, possessive part of you, and you slid the silk over you, wondering how thick fingers might rip it off.

A knock at the door pulled you out of your head, snapping you into gear as you changed. Pulling it open, you saw Kate standing there waiting. Her gaze remained professional as she admired the dress.

“It suits you well. John’s always had a good eye for things like that. Come, let’s head to set.” Walking at a steady pace, you kept the conversation flowing.

“Does John usually do things like this?” You pointed down at the dress, trying to keep your tone neutral. Kate laughed lightly, shaking her head.

“Not always. Usually only with his favourites.” She gazed at you out of the corner of her eye. “But he’s so winding down on his career, so maybe he’s just in a generous mood.” There was something in her tone that left you feeling slightly baffled, no closer to understanding the reason why he’d picked this out for you.

Stepping into the studio, the first person you noticed was John, dressed in a button-down shirt with fitted slacks. He whistled lowly, eyes unabashedly roaming over your figure.

“Look at you. Knew that colour would suit you well. Come. The sooner we get started, the sooner we can enjoy ourselves, yeah?” He held out a hand, motioning towards the set.

“You didn’t have to.” You breathed, glancing down at the dress. “But I really appreciate the gesture. Almost makes me feel bad for not getting anything for you.” Taking his hand, he leads you towards the bedroom set, where you were playing his partner in an established relationship, waiting for him to come home late from work.

“The gift is working with you, sweets, and looking so perfect in that dress.” His stare was a little hungrier this time, raking over your body. Squeezing your hand, he stepped back behind the camera as Nikolai motioned for the scene to begin.

***

As you stood leaning over the kitchen bench, you hear John step onto the set, placing down the empty prop briefcase as he sighed heavily.

“Hey, sweetheart. I’m home.” A hand clasped over your hip as he pulled you towards him, burying his face in your neck. Reaching up, you cupped the back of his head, humming softly as you tilted your pelvis back against his. His fingers dug into your hip firmly, a deep rumble in his throat probably not audible enough to be picked up by the microphone.

“Welcome home, honey. Did you have a good day?

“Better now that I’m here.” He replied almost instantly, body hands now cupping your body, breath heavy on your skin as he trailed his fingers up and down the lines of your body. “Especially when my wife is lookin’ so pretty in what I bought her.”

His… wife? That hadn’t been specified in the script. Sure, it said an established relationship, but there was something that stirred inside you at the sound of that word coming from his mouth in reference to you. And so, you played along.

“Gotta make sure I look pretty for my husband, don’t I?” You purred, turning your head to his as you grinned, pressing your lips to his temple, nails dragging over his scalp.

“Always look pretty, lovey. Pretty for me, hmm?” God he really was good at making his costars feel wanted, pinging the right receptors in your brain that craved this for real. You moaned prettily, arching your back for both John and the camera as his hands slid up your front, thick fingers ghosting teasingly over your breasts as he mouthed at your neck. Whimpering, you placed one hand over his, trying to urge his hand down, but he tittered in your ear.

“So desperate, aren’t you? Don’t worry, you’ll get what you want. Just let me play with you first, yeah?” You nodded at him as you glanced over your shoulder. There was no way you were going to say no, not with the way his large hands were running over your body, tugging the pathetic excuse for clothing as he went. Your lashes fluttered as his lips sealed over your neck, sucking softly as he ground his erection into your ass.

God he was already hard. The voice of reason in the back of your head told you he’d most likely taken viagra like a lot of the men did to keep it up for so long, but the fantasy you were playing through your head liked to think it was all you. Letting out another low growl, John bared his teeth, biting into your neck before sucking soothingly.

“No marking!” You heard your manager exclaim in the background, before being hushed by Nikolai.

“Don’t interrupt. He knows what he’s doing.”

As if to spite your manager further, John swept your hair away, latching onto the other side of your neck, drawing out a soft moan as you clung to his short hair, encouraging him further.

“Yes! Please! Mark me as yours.” John presses his weight against you, causing you to fall forward onto your elbows on the bench. Hands cupped the globes of your ass roughly as he pressed a line of kisses down your exposed spine.

“My pretty fuckin’ wife, aren’t ya?” His voice was thick with desire as his fingers teased the hem of your dress, scrunching it up until it lifted over your ass. John groaned as he revealed the swell of your cheeks, the thin straps of the white thong he’d bought barely covering anything. “Look at you. So fuckin’ pretty. Too fuckin’ pretty for me. Can’t believe you married me. I’m so lucky to have you, sweets. Perfect girl f’me ain’t cha?”

Your head was spinning as the words of praise kept coming. Bent over the kitchen bench, ass on display for him, and held down by one of his strong arms made you feel incredibly vulnerable yet secure in a way you hadn’t felt filming before.

“One leg up for me?” He tapped the outside of your thigh, and you hitched it up obediently, knee resting on the bench to expose yourself further to him. John let out a low breath as he sunk to his knees between your spread legs. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see a camera following his movements and so, like you’d been taught, you clenched, causing your clothed cunt to throb for the camera. And for John. You heard him chuckle and glanced over your shoulder to see him staring up at you with a brow raised.

“Cheeky thing.”

His hands ran up the backs of your legs, causing you to shiver in anticipation. His breath was close to where you wanted him and you whined in response, tilting your hips back ever so slightly to display your soaked underwear better for the camera. At that movement, John clicked his tongue and slapped your ass.

“This pussy’s mine, y’hear?” He growled almost possessively, fingers digging into the backs of your thighs, keeping your legs spread for him. “Look at you. So wet and eager for me, huh? Bought you these pretty knickers and you’ve already ruined them.” One finger gently traced along the length of your clothed slit, and you keened, trying to push your hips back to gain more friction, but his other arm wrapped around your hips, pinning them to the cold bench.

“Don’t get greedy now, sweetheart. You’ll get what you want, just let me admire you first.” Already, your legs were trembling as his thumb brushed against your clit. Gasping a little excessively for the camera, you bit your lip, fingers pressing into the stone below you as you felt him lift up the soaked underwear and pull them to the side.

“Oh love.” He cooed, blowing gently on your sensitive, exposed skin. “You’re so wet. Have I been neglecting my duties as your husband? Not been treatin’ my wife right and leaving her desperate and utterly drenched. You been wet and wanting all day, sweets?” Though you couldn’t see his face, you could hear the smirk in his voice, hear the cockiness as even he knew you were this wet for him naturally.

Moaning in affirmation, you shook your ass in his face. “God please… need your mouth on me, sir. Need it so badly.” He chuckled, thumb returning to brush against your clit, this time with no fabric in the way.

“Being so polite, love. You really do want it, huh? My mouth on your pretty pussy? Look at it. So swollen and needy.” Gritting your teeth in impatience, you glanced over your shoulder, meeting his cocky gaze as lips pulled into a smirk.

“Please, I need your mouth on me. I’m so wet for you. Want your tongue in my cunt.” The smirk faded slightly from his face and his eyes narrowed as he stared up at you for a moment. One finger steadily tapped against your thigh as time seemed to ooze by. Gulping, your brows furrowed, unsure if you’d said something wrong, but then he winked and leaned forward, licking a fat stripe up your slit.

Breath hitching at the sudden movement, a broken moan left your lips as your eyes fluttered closed. Your body clenched as your hips twitched, angling them slightly to follow John’s tongue. Chuckling darkly, John whispers into your cunt, your own ears barely able to pick up the words.

“There’s the real you, sweetheart. Gimme more of that.”

The soft whimpering from your mouth just urged him on, his tongue licking broad strokes over your cunt before he slid his fingers between your labia, spreading them to flick the tip of his tongue delicately over your clit. Jumping at the direct stimulation, you tried to pull away from him, but his arm still held firm over your hips.

“None of that now, love. You’ll take what I give you like my good little plaything, yeah?”

“Oh fuck…” You whispered under your breath, eyes fluttering as you nodded. Taking that as permission, he dove back in, lavishing your cunt like he was starved. His tongue dragged up the length of your slit before plunging in to taste you deeply, thumb working over your clit. Then, he kissed his way down so his lips could replace his thumb, sealing themselves over the bundle of nerves, sucking and flicking it at the same time.

The bristles of his facial hair burned the insides of your thighs pleasurably as he buried his face into your wet pussy, nose prodding your hole as his mouth continued to work you over. His hands ran up your legs, caressed the backs of your thighs, and over your ass to spread your cheeks wider, giving him more room to work with.

“John… oh my god John please!” You buried your face into the crook of your elbow as you moaned pitifully, feeling a genuine orgasm rising much faster than you were expecting.

“Lift your head up!” The sharp voice of your manager broke you out of the fantasy and propelled you back to the reality of the moment. You were at work, filming. This wasn’t for personal pleasure; it was meant to be marketable for audiences. Lifting your head up, you tipped it back slightly, putting on a face for the camera as you moaned, not that you needed to fake much with the way John was devouring you.

Snarling at the interruption of your manager, John’s fingers dug tighter into the meat of your ass, tongue swirling around your clit in sharp circles as he groaned, the vibrations running through your body, causing you to press your hips back onto his face. A guttural noise rumbled in his chest as you did so, and he pulled away. John was panting heavily as he stared at you swollen, wet cunt, eagerly twitching and throbbing for more.

“You have no idea how fucking good you taste, do you love?” His voice was gruff, lustful as he ran two fingers through your folds once more, spreading them to reveal your cunt so he could spit, and then plunge two fingers into you. Almost immediately, he hooked them expertly, just right to press insistently against that spongy spot inside you as he trailed soft kisses along your inner thighs. His beard was soaked with your juices, leaving the feeling of sticky wetness behind as he returned to your clit.

Sucking in air, you felt your body beginning to slide over the smooth surface of the bench as your body temperature rose. John’s mouth returned to your sex, teeth gently grazing over the hood of your clit before pressing his tongue against you and sucking. Letting out a high-pitched wail, you felt yourself clenching around his fingers, hips bucking into his mouth as he continued to pleasure you. Unable to find purchase on anything stable, you gripped your own hair, throwing your head back as you moaned loudly, feeling your inevitable climax approaching.

It wasn’t like you hadn’t orgasmed at work before, but it wasn’t common. And when it had happened, it certainly wasn’t this intense. Heart beating rapidly and your breathing quickened as the tandem effort of his fingers and mouth brought you closer. John could tell too, with the way he kept the same rhythm of his fingers and mouth, letting out muffled groans when he felt your pussy squeeze around his digits. You felt your entire body clenching before spasming, your orgasm rushing through your body as you twitched and jerked uncontrollably.

“Fuck John… fuck!” You moaned lewdly, remembering to at least roll your eyes back excessively for the sake of the camera, when all you wanted to do was bury your face into your arm as your body shook from the intensity of your climax.

John had pulled his mouth back, working you through your release with his fingers inside you and his thumb on your clit. Your juices dribbled down his arm and between your legs, puddling on the floor below you as he crooned.

“Oh, fuck look at you. Fuckin’ squirting for me ‘n all. Good fucking girl. Good fucking girl! Knew you could do it. You’re so fucking hot, love. Wish I coulda seen that pretty face as you came like that.” He pressed soft kisses to your thigh between his sweet, vulgar words, fingers slapping gently over your clit to extend your orgasm for as long as possible before you jerked, the overstimulation settling in.

Withdrawing and rising to his full height, John flipped you around effortlessly, so you were on your back and tugged you close. He wrapped your legs around his hips and pulled your body up by the back of your neck so he could seal his mouth over yours. Trying to fight the urge to simply go limp, you gripped onto his thick arms, but you could feel yourself sagging. Noticing, John pulled back, resting his forehead on yours.

“Need a break, sweets?” He whispered, his voice earnest, and you knew he was looking out for you. His grip tightened around you, making sure he was holding you steady as you made up your mind.

“I think so.” You nodded, sucking in breaths to try and calm your racing heart. “Haven’t cum that hard in a while, sir. I think I’ll need a breather.” He hummed, pressing a reassuring kiss to your cheek before signalling Nikolai over your shoulder. You heard the director yell to cut as John ran his fingers down your arms soothingly.

“Tell me what you need.”

#crash writes #captain john price x reader #john price x reader #captain price x reader #captain john price smut #john price smut #captain price smut #call of duty #call of duty smut #john price x you #captain price x you #pornstar!price

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noaestheticacademic · 1 year ago

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On the Identity of "Chat"

Like all the linguistics folks on Tumblr, I've been sent the "chat is a fourth person pronoun" post by a bunch of well-meaning people and and I've been thinking waaay too much about it. @hbmmaster made a wonderful post explaining exactly why "chat" ISN'T a fourth person pronoun, and after reading it I wanted to go a little deeper on what it might actually be doing linguistically, because it is a really interesting phenomenon. Here's a little proposal on what might be going on, with the caveat that it's not backed up by a sociolinguistic survey (which would be fun but more than I could throw together this morning).

On Pronouns

Studying linguistics has been really beneficial for me because understanding that language is constantly changing helped me to become comfortable with using they/them pronouns for myself. I've since done a decent amount of work with pronouns, and here are some basic ideas.

A basic substitution test shows that "chat" is not syntactically a pronoun: it can't be replaced with a pronoun in a sentence.

"Chat, what do we think about that?"

"He*, what do we think about that?" (* = ungrammatical, a native speaker of English would think it sounds wrong)

Linguists identify pronouns as bundles of features identifying the speaker, addressee, and/or someone outside the current discourse. So, a first person pronoun refers to the speaker, a second person pronoun refers to the addressee, and a third person pronoun refers to someone who is neither the speaker nor the addressee (but who is still known to the speaker and addressee). This configuration doesn't leave a lot of room for a "fourth" person. But the intuition people have that "chat" refers to something external to the discourse is worth exploring.

Hypothesis 1: Chat is a fourth-person pronoun.

We've knocked this one right out.

Hypothesis 2: Chat is an address term.

So what's an address term? These are words like "dude, bro, girl, sir" that we use to talk to people. In the original context where "chat" appears - streamers addressing their viewers - it is absolutely an address term. We can easily replace "chat" with any of these address terms in the example sentence above. It's clear that the speaker is referring to a specific group (viewers) who are observing and commenting on (but not fully participating in) the discourse of the stream. The distinction between OBSERVATION and PARTICIPATION is a secret tool that will come in handy later.

But when a student in a classroom says "wow chat, I hate this," is that student referring to their peers as a chat? In other words, is the student expecting any sort of participation or observation by the other students of their utterance? Could "chat" be replaced with "guys" in this instance and retain its nuance? My intuition as a zillenial (which could be way off, please drop your intuitions in the comments) is that the relationship between a streamer and chat is not exactly what the speaker in this case expects out of their peers. Which brings me to...

Hypothesis 3: chat is a stylistic index.

What's an index in linguistics? To put it very simply, it's anything that has acquired a social meaning based on the context in which it's said. In its original streaming context, it's an address term. But it can be used in contexts where there is not a chat, or even any group of people that could be abstracted into being a chat. Instead, people use this linguistic structure to explicitly mimic the style which streamers use.

And that much seems obvious, right? Of course people are mimicking streamers. It doesn't take a graduate degree to figure that out. What's interesting to me is why people choose to employ streaming language in certain scenarios. How is it different from the same sentence, minus the streamer style?

This all comes down to the indexicality, or social meaning, of streamer speak. This is where I ask you all to take over: what sorts of attitudes and qualities do you associate with that kind of person and that kind of speech? I think it has to do with (here it comes!) the PARTICIPANT/OBSERVER distinction. By framing speech as having observers, a speaker takes on the persona of someone who is observed - a self-styled celebrity. To use "chat" is to position oneself as a celebrity, and in some cases even to mock the notion of such a position. We can see a logical path from how streamers use "chat" as an address term to how it is co-opted to reference streamer culture and that celebrity/observer relationship in non-streaming mediated discourse. If we think about it that way, then it's easy to see why the "fourth person pronoun" post is so appealing. It highlights a discourse relationship that is being invoked wherein "chat" is not a group but a style.

#chat #linguistics #pronouns #discourse

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nanamis-bigtie · 11 months ago

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Neighboring Whispers

Character: Higuruma Hiromi Reader: female (cis) CW: explicit nsfw content, pre-relationship, neighbors next door, attraction at the first sight, mutual pinning, hair fetish, hair pulling, blowjob, fingers in mouth, spitting in mouth, praise kink & pet names (good girl and variations), fingering & vaginal sex, spanking, creampie, reader has long, non-curly hair and tattoos (yes, it's plot relevant) Word Count: 9k Synopsis: By a pressing accident you were left without water in your apartment, and you were forced to beg your neighbor, Higuruma, for letting you to take a shower in his bathroom. Dazed after a sleepless night, he obliged to your request. The consequences of his spontaneous decision had been haunting him ever since... A/N: little birds chirped @lale-txt wanted a sexy lawyer under her christmas tree and since we were already doing a server exchange... ;) merry a little late christmas, Lale, I hope you will enjoy this absolute monster of a one shot! ❤ jjk masterlist // ao3 version

The first ring was like an irritating fly, bouncing off the walls of his exhausted concentration, its dull buzzing drilling into his ears.

The second jolted him from head to toes, the first move in a prominently long time, aching and tingling in stiff joints and drowsy muscles.

The third finally made him peel eyes off the screen, his sight blurry and invisible sand grazing under his eyelids.

Higuruma hid face behind the soothing shadow of his hands, plastered tight to his skin, and groaned, almost cursed. He was tired, so deadly tired he would swore he could feel the dark circles under his eyes. The dizziness was comparable to one after an unsuccessful power nap—yet, he knew he wasn't asleep even for a second. He couldn't, not when at work, at that damned work he swore he would touch only for an hour, two at the absolute maximum, and then go to bed, to finally grab proper rest for the rare free day to come.

For how long was he stuck by the kitchen table, the place he had chosen to avoid the focus? Higuruma feared to peel hands off his eyes, but he still did so. The light, sipping through wide open blinds, was already bright and dazzling. The microwave clock was even more merciless: it showed a few minutes past eight.

Fuck.

The fourth ring was the longest, desperate and inappropriate for such an early hour. Under other circumstances Higuruma wouldn't welcome the intruder with open arms but at that moment he felt somewhat grateful for snapping him out of trance.

"Coming." He announced, more to himself than to the person behind the door. Legs bent and swayed under him at first, he had to lean against the table for a moment, cursing his workaholism and age, but he forced himself to stand straight, then to walk. By the time he reached the door he was almost back to state befitting a man in his thirties, not a senior he got turned into by a sleepless, work-full night.

Higuruma didn't look through the peephole first, just opened, catching you already turning back. A whirl of long hair caught his attention faster than your face, not that it helped him much when he finally met it with his exhausted—yet still attentive—gaze. He could roughly pinpoint it as familiar but couldn't bring any name nor other particularly useful information to it.

He knew you lived on the same floor. He knew you were often doing groceries in the same shop as him. He knew you both were sometimes taking the same train in the morning—but he had never caught which was your stop.

That's all.

"How can I help you, miss—" Higuruma's voice faltered; he was still trying to squeeze your name out of his memory, but his focus was already taking a different direction. There was something eerie about you, something concerning not as a danger for him but as a sign something must had happened, to you or to the whole surrounding. He wouldn't put it past himself to miss an emergency; when he was working, he could have easily overlooked a whole apocalypse.

You were a mess. Possibly worse than his own. Uncombed hair, falling over your shoulders in tangled strands, greasy face, visibly home-only oversized tracksuit, blowzily thrown over your shoulders, a tote bag, overfull, squeezed tight to your chest… He wasn't a detective, but he could easily tell you left your place in a hurry.

"Y/N." You relieved Higuruma of his main concern. "I live at number 33."

You took a sharp turn, nodding to your door, but Higuruma's eyes barely followed, yet again swallowed by the sheer waterfall of your hair.

"Alright, this is gonna be…awkward." You took a deep breath, as if adding yourself power to wade through whatever pressed on your soul. "Please. I beg. I need a shower."

"Pardon?" Higuruma almost choked on breath, shocked less by the sudden request, just rapidly pulled out of chaotic thoughts buzzing at the back of his head. Thoughts full of your hair and its flow, the suffocating and entrancing vortex.

"I have no water." You nearly sobbed. "There's a renovation up there, I forgot… The whole plumb line is turned off on my side. I don't know when— Fuck, I have a meeting in three hours. I don't have time to run to a bathhouse, even if they would let me in…"

He must have made an exceptionally stupid expression because you stumbled out of your panicked trance and hurried to explain what he hadn't even deemed as needing any explanation. Hugging the tote with one arm, you rolled the sleeve of the other and revealed a tattoo running up the forearm towards the elbow.

He nodded with understanding.

"Please, sir, no one else answers the door…" Your gaze flicked at him with such pleading that his already crumbling resolve immediately backed off, leaving him unarmed against you and your illegally beautiful hair. "I'll pay for the—"

"I charge only for legal advice, shower is a free service." Higuruma tried to squeeze a joke out of himself but with his exhausted expression he could as well recite a random sentence out of the case he was chewing through for the whole night. "First door to the left. Ah, and sorry for the…mess."

It was a massive overestimation, he realized a few of your steps into his apartment too late. His place needed a thorough tidying like fresh water. It wasn't dirty, at least that—but everything screamed "single, overworked, and too done to bother" at anyone who paid a minimum of attention. Dust, empty mugs and beer cans, takeout boxes piled into a temporary dumpster, any flat surface littered with books, files, loose notes, newspapers… Hey, he wasn't that bad usually, but you caught him in the worst moment, right before the day booked for being a responsible adult

Hell, he should have at the very least do something about his bathroom before he let you in. But you pounced at the door faster than his thought and he had to chew on his shame with the noise of his own shower filling the awkward silence around him.

When was the last time someone barged into his life like this? The last relationship Higuruma could call a serious one had lasted before he finished his apprenticeship. With time slipping through his hands and wallet filling with money he had eventually stopped inviting his flings to his place. And in the past few years he had extinguished even this fragile flame that kept pushing him into love hotels with equally tired participants of seminars, coworkers, and random lays he had stumbled upon in bars and never bothered to remember their names.

He couldn't see nor hear you, nothing over the hum of water, and yet, your presence was mercilessly crawling under his skin. He felt your breath at the back of his neck as he was tidying the space around in hurry. Maybe it wouldn't have been so palpable if you were a man… But a woman in his kingdom of the mid-thirty loneliness? Something about this fact cut a good half on his year count—and not to his advantage. He never pegged himself as shy nor crude to be bothered by a fact of a woman simply existing in his proximity, but…

It had been long, too long. And you were exactly in his type.

Exhaustion played a huge role at that, he was sure of it. Exhaustion paired with neglected libido and long-forgotten fetish perking their traitorous heads up at the slightest trace of your presence. You dropped something and shivers ran up his spine so hard he almost dropped his laptop too. A faint smell of fruity cosmetics reached his nose, and he couldn't remember anymore where he should put the papers he held. The hum of the shower finally stilled, and panic bubbled under his skin, cutting him short on sight and breath for a split second—split but long enough to mess with his balance.

You caught him like this, still bent over the table, at first glance nonchalantly checking something on the phone, in fact—fighting for the last scrap of dignity left in him.

Higuruma observed you with the corner of his eye, tense like a string. It was easier to look at you now, with your hair meticulously tucked under a towel tied around your head, so he took that risk. Little did it help. The sight of you casually standing in the middle of his apartment, bare feet, damp shirt plastered to your sides, churned his insides with yearning that had nothing to do with lewd ideas.

Yes, it definitely had been too long since he was touched with this level of intimacy.

"Sorry for the mess," he repeated himself, his voice feeling dry at his throat.

Your laughter suited the sharp yet sweet scent of your shower gel, filling his apartment for hours to come, "I won't look a gift shower in the plumbing. Thank you, mister—"

"Higuruma," he quickly cut in before awkwardness managed to drag you into his misery.

"Higuruma," you repeated, mimicking his accent almost to perfection.

He loved the way his last name rolled on your tongue. He loved it so much he had to turn away for a moment and bite on his own. Thoughts dancing in his head pressed too much to his lips. But he wasn't that much of a creep to let them do as they please. Just the fact they existed was putting him into embarrassment.

Did you notice? Most likely not, too busy balancing on one foot to pull a sock, then shoe, on the other. With a tote tugged under your armpit and in a hurry, you clearly struggled, but Higuruma didn't move from his place, mindful of his sins and the situation overall. If you needed help, you would ask, until then it would be better, if he kept this distance.

"I know you said no money but any chance I could return a favor in any other way?" You pulled him instead into conversation, much to the panic of his tongue, tying into clumsy knots at the slightest thought of speaking.

"It's nothing." Higuruma let the dream scenario fly over his head. He wasn't sure if you were flirting or just hated the idea of being in debt and in front of uncertainty, he preferred to stand his stubborn ground.

"You let a stranger use your shower." You didn't give up. You had the ball and you insisted on rolling it despite hurry pressing at your back, it seemed.

"My impossibly cluttered shower." Years in court made him more patient than a saint, even in front of a person crumbling his resolve into dust with a single flick of eyelashes. "I'd feel bad if I asked for something in exchange for such conditions."

"And what about me? I already feel bad for cluttering your space with myself."

"If I ever find myself without water, I'll know where to go."

You rolled your eyes and laughed again, your voice sharper this time. Higuruma wasn't especially sensitive with sounds but the change of yours immediately caught his attention and craved itself into his memory.

Oh, it was bad.

Dumbfounded, he didn't react when you pounced towards his abandoned workplace and snatched a piece of paper and a pen.

"I don't have much time left so—" You scribbled fast, digging deep into the surface, and yet clear enough for him to read with ease. "I'm a regular here. Come anytime and tell them Y/N sent you. The lunch is on me."

If not for the paper on the table and scent you left all over the apartment, Higuruma would classify you as a fever dream of an all-nighter the moment you sprinted out, apologizing and saying goodbyes all at the same time. He followed almost blindly, ready to shut the door as soon as you crossed the threshold (and cut you out before any weird new thought would haunt him). He already planned to air the whole place and scrub the bathroom out of your presence

He would, no hesitation, return to his cozy loneliness if not for a draft finally crushing the fragile construction on top of your head. Cascade of hair tore the knot apart, the towel slid down your shoulders straight into his hand as he reached for it without thinking twice and before it managed to untangle fully from the wet strands. They brushed his fingers, for a split time he felt their soft texture and weight, and his heart throbbed so hard he lost a good ounce of breath right there, over the threshold.

"Sorry and thank you! Take care, Higuruma!" The door of your apartment clicked closed before the echo of your voice disappeared. He stood there even longer, pulse beating in his ears like a drum and his cheeks burning. It felt like hours before he finally forced himself back into his place, barricaded into illusive safety, hand pressed tight to his face, to muffle a loud groan.

His skin was still slightly wet and smelled of your shampoo.

Oh, he was so done for.

He should have trashed that note.

It glared at him right from where you had left it. Higuruma hadn't dared to move it any way, himself not sure why, but instead of blending into the environment, as he was hoping, it stood out like a huge, bloody stain of shame. A reminder of what he had been praying for to be just a dream born out of exhaustion and sleepless night.

He was doing his best to not look at it. It attracted his eyes like a magnet.

In no time he knew the name and address by heart. His excellent memory, so helpful in his career, became his curse. One look in note's direction and his mind was already mapping the route. Of course, it had to be conveniently located, in the area he knew well, relatively close to his workplace, in distance perfect for a lunch break.

If only he trashed this piece of damned paper!

Maybe then his mind wouldn't be plagued with ideas and temptation. Maybe he wouldn't have to sneak in and out of his own apartment like a thief, jerking at the slightest sound behind his back. He was leaving earlier, returning later, changing routes and shopping in a different 7-Eleven. Everything to not run into you—just to return to your scent still somehow lingering in the air.

Higuruma was ready to swear you had somehow cursed him. Was it humanly possible to influence his life with only showering in his bathroom? The sharp and fruity scent grew stronger near the cabin, shaped in his mind like a vortex of your hair. Warm water falling on his head felt like your laughter, droplets traced down his chest and stomach like signs you wrote on the note, elegant and pronounced.

Your name tasted sweet and heavy on his tongue. Higuruma didn't dare to say it aloud, but it lingered, a sweet aftertaste of a candy he couldn't bring himself to ask for. He still tried to weigh it, right at the tip of his tongue, slick as a feel of your wet hair slipping through his fingertips.

Only once, he tried to put it into life, but it barely danced at the edge of his teeth and died with a miserable groan as he couldn't hold himself back any longer and spent the rest of his morning shower on furiously fucking his fist.

He should have trashed— No, burnt this note and thrown the ashes in the wind.

By the time his legs finally carried him, still against his will, to the address, Higuruma had already abandoned the idea of avoiding the problem. He wasn't quite there with an ultimate decision, but the desperation reached the level where he had to simmer it down. Giving in to temptation of seeing you again was only a reasonable decision; with some luck he would not find you there and, with a now clean conscience, he would finally get rid of the paper of shame.

Seeing the signboard took him aback. Higuruma didn't ponder over the location to expect anything, but he still froze in place, hand clenched stupid at the handle as he took a step back to look at the name again.

It sounded like one of those modern, instagram-catered places for a quick lunch in a break from rushing through the city. It was nowhere close to what, in fact, the place was: a cat cafe, in its whole camp and overfly fluffy glory.

Higuruma looked at the signboard, then took a peek through the window again. A fat tabby cat, loafing on a table by the sill, peeked back at him and slowly blinked. He took it as an order.

One deeper breath later he finally entered. Right by the threshold he was attacked by the suffocating, sweet scent, dangerously reminding him of the cosmetics you used in his bathroom. Panic roared at the back of his head but before he could listen and withdraw, he grabbed eye contact with a barista who had perked her head over the coffee machine.

"Good afternoon, sir." She smiled at him, as full of enthusiasm as professionalism allowed. "A table in a regular room or in a cat—"

"I have received a capias issued for a certain gentleman I found resting in your property." He said dryly, maybe a little too much as the woman's friendly expression tensed into a mix of stress and confusion. "Just joking. I'm not arresting anyone. I had this place recommended by an acquaintance of mine."

When he said your name, she immediately smiled (not without a breath of relief, he noticed) and dropped the mask of a perfect employee. He was stared at curiously now, from the tips of leather shoes to neatly composed hairstyle. Oh, he definitely was the main subject of workplace gossip—and would jump back into fashion once he left this place, no doubt in this matter.

"My apologies, sir, Y/N mentioned you would show up but hasn't notified us when." She flashed him with a genuine smile. "You're in luck, she's stopped for a lunch today, she's in the cat room right now. Shall I—"

"I'll find my way." Higuruma quickly cut in. He wouldn't mind adding spice to the gossip, even if just to ease his own stress, but…somehow, the thought of being observed during an inevitably awkward moment churned his stomach in a very not good way. "I would like—"

He studied the menu at the blackboard. Most of the names reminded him of absolutely nothing. "Something… decadent and viral, how kids call it. Surprise me, please."

"Would you like something to eat?"

"No, thank you."

He was ordered to strip from his jacket and scarf and asked to keep his briefcase as close as possible. Barista took her sweet time to study him as she walked him to the cat room, on her way explaining in detail what was allowed and what not. Higuruma let the words fly over his head: he had no interest in tormenting poor animals (who and for what would want to pull them by their tails?), but even if he had, his plans would be undeniably ruined by your presence. He already felt his throat clenching—not in fear or panic but in the same kind of embarrassment he felt whenever his thoughts about you slipped into the direction, he'd been avoiding at all costs. All of his thoughts were decent at that moment, yet he was tense and flushed regardless. Something, from the depths of his intuition, was whispering that, no matter what he does and says, he would reveal everything that happened, in his mind and not, since the day he had seen you barefoot and with wet hair in the middle of his apartment.

It would straight up make him come across as a creep.

He didn't want to come across as a creep.

"And no apprehensions." Barista finished her lecture with a smooth joke and pulled at the door to the cat paradise.

The main part of the cafe was calm—but the cat room was even calmer and silent, no music, none of the steady hum of working machines. It was almost empty too but a small group of teenage girls, flocking around the table by a huge cat tree, and you, of course, in a cozy corner, leaning over a book. Higuruma's heart almost flipped in his chest at the sight and fluttered just harder and faster when you pulled a stray strand of your hair behind your ear. The move was slow, smooth and so sensual one would think you were doing it deliberately.

But you were lost in thought, unaware of your surroundings and Higuruma's gaze taking in the view voraciously, straight up swallowing every inch of yours. From your face, beautiful in your calm focus, to the tips of your fingers, still tangled in the strands behind your ear—and down your back, together with the flow of loosely tied hair.

His mouth was dry and full of saliva at the same time. A smooth starter he had prepared in a case of wonderfully bad luck just died, leaving him with tight, uncomfortable silence and head empty of thoughts, full just of the feel of the same hair against his hand.

He hoped too that seeing you in a more presentable state would crush the intimate, inappropriate for your level of familiarity, appearance of yours he had coded. And eventually relieve him of the yearning that had nothing and everything to do with sex, all at once.

Fool, idiot, a hundred times a naive kid. Seeing you like this only made everything worse.

"Y/N! Your neighbor with a sexy nose is finally here." The barista chirped over his shoulder and bolted before neither of you both could react.

If the block in his throat was difficult to swallow before, now Higuruma could as well just suffocate and die on point.

"Higuruma!" You tried to feign a cheerful attitude, but flustered expression and sudden flap of both hands betrayed you. One of them was still tangled in your hair; you yanked it free from the ponytail and sent your ornate hair clip flying. It fell right by his feet with a little metallic thud.

"You seem to lose your head at my sight." Higuruma saw the opportunity to avoid your gaze and snatched it so fast he almost hit his head against the table. "Or I should rather say: things from your head."

His hand trembled under the weight of the little trinket. It seemed alright except for three zirconias that fell out straight into his palm, "Towel at least took it better."

You muttered a simple thanks and took the hair clip before he climbed up from his knee. Your hands met for a split moment and a sharp shock snapped up and down Higuruma's spine.

He hoped he managed to feign his calm better than you.

The silence that followed was heavy but not awkward for a change. Higuruma found himself a new excuse to look away, subtle and polite, just right to give you space for collecting thoughts: the decor of the cat room was truly entertaining to observe. Higuruma never had a cat; he was very pleased to notice that the furniture he took at first for clutter was in fact a developed playground. Little creatures, intrigued or concerned by the noise, moved from their spots. Shelves, ottomans and line bridges fluttered with elegant steps and soft tapping of little paws.

Even the fat tabby turned its head and gave Higuruma a look full of pity.

"It doesn't click right," you finally broke the much needed pause, pulling his attention back to you. "Oh well. I really liked it."

"It is a pity." He agreed, somehow keeping voice in check. The last thing he wanted was to suddenly screech at you. Fate knows how much his throat tried to, though. "It really suited your hair."

He didn't get a good look at it but after so many thoughts recalling your hair in detail, Higuruma could easily imagine it from every angle. His cheeks filled with traitorous, familiar heat. At least he wasn't prone to blushing.

By the gleam in your eyes, he could tell you were about to pick up the flirting, but you were interrupted by the barista. Looks were exchanged over his head, a slight tick at the corner of your lips betrayed their nature, but his attention was instead pulled by a piece of latte art put in front of him.

They really took his request to their hearts. Milk foam on top of his coffee was piled into a chubby cat face. They went as far as adding eyes, nose, whiskers and a little cunning smile. Three stripes at the top of its head must have been made with coffee as a paint. He had to admit the dedication to detail was truly endearing.

"Oh. That's surprising." You hummed, more to yourself, but continued louder prompted by his furrowing eyebrows. "You don't look like someone who would order a cute latte."

"Oh? And how do I look?"

"Black coffee. No sugar."

"I like it very sweet, actually." Higuruma finally felt more at ease, tension melting down his shoulders so visibly he could swear it was happening literally. "With a dash of milk."

The first few sentences were always the worst, in law and flirting alike. Once he got a good grip of the situation, he could finally focus on the exchange only. You were a cunning conversation partner, fast to catch his jokes, smooth to follow the thread and bounce the ball back at him. You had quite a gamut of shared topics and he just kept growing more interested—no, fascinated.

Your mind and soul were fitting his type even more accurate than your appearance.

And yet, Higuruma's thoughts kept bouncing back to the fateful morning, to the perfection of your body in its messy glory. He couldn't help but to compare all the time. A strip of your tattoo peeked from under your sleeve—and he knew how far it, in fact, reached. A contour of your bra was visible under your shirt—in almost the same place where wet spots had pressed since you had dried yourself in a rush. Your hair fell smooth over your shoulders, in heavy strands he was dying for to caress—because he remembered the sensation of their ends touching his skin.

Over and over again, his flesh was taking over his mind. And it was…infuriating.

When something touched his calf, Higuruma nearly jolted. He managed to forget a little how tense he still was, illusion destroyed fast by a friendly tail, wrapping around his leg.

The indifferent stare and chunky posture were already familiar.

"Oh, someone likes you." You cooed with a bright smile. "It's rare for Haru to come to a new client."

"She's being picky?" The lawyer leaned down, let the curious cat sniff his fingers before he gently caressed its head.

"He. He's a little fussy diva. Wait, maybe I'll encourage him a little—"

You leaned to the side and behind to reach for a toy, move quite fast, and your hair repeated the vortex he had seen even before he had taken a look at your face. The almost painful churning in Higuruma's stomach rushed dangerously low; he coughed into fist to give a reason for leaning forwards. Haru snapped his head back at the noise, but instead of running away he leaped into the lawyer's lap, fitting tight the space between his torso and thighs. And successfully hiding the area that could become problematic at any moment.

"Thanks, buddy," Higuruma whispered and scratched him behind the ear.

"He really likes you." You laughed, by no means offended for your sneaky plan to fail before it had started. "You're so natural with cats."

"It's only one of my talents." He flicked his gaze at you, his hand resting full on the cat's head, deliberately swept along the line of its spine. "Been always told I'm good with my hands."

The risk was exceptionally calculated, even for him. But it paid off with sparks of interest flickering in your eyes and fast, so easy to miss, bite at the side of your bottom lip.

The note had been replaced by a hair clip.

Higuruma hadn't even thought twice when he had sprinted out of work straight to a jeweler. His mind and soul had been in a different place, entranced by your number freshly saved on his phone, and hadn't perked up even at the significant amount of money he had spent on a golden clip.

The coincidence had been too good to be just a wink of fate: the design was almost identical to your old one.

Complications had appeared after he had come back and grabbed much deserved sleep. Fresh brain had pushed the old scruples back to the surface, and the would-be gift had ended on the kitchen table, leering at Higuruma as he was sneaking by, in shame and trying to look away.

Since the cat cafe date, you had met at least five times. All meetings had been rather non-committal and platonic, and the closest he got to fulfilling his fantasies had been a gentle kiss on his cheek he had earned after a movie. Yet, Higuruma knew there was a prominent spark of interest on your side. So far you had answered all of his advances with eagerness if not straight forward had been playing with him as if he was a cat on the other end of a teasing wand.

He was still feeling ashamed of himself but didn't intend to let such an opportunity slip through his hands. All he needed was that last step…but he couldn't quite grow spine to finally make it.

So the hair clip kept glaring at him, and he kept ignoring it, as much as he could at least before he was caving in to all those temptations leading him to late night shower fantasies.

By the time he heard you ringing to his door he even managed to forget about it a little. Well, he was deep in work again, his mind finally free of all red-hot thoughts and quandaries—until said sound pierced him like a stray bullet. He knew immediately it was you; he couldn't explain why and how but he knew. The rush of blood thudding in his ears for once had nothing to do with anxiety—this time it was a genuine excitement, hope even, if he dared to somewhat name the vortex of his thoughts. This was but just a little change; it meant nothing for heat building in his cheek nor for trembling of hands he barely tamed on his way to the door.

Before he opened, he had to take a deep, hopefully calming breath.

"This is gonna be awkward again." You admitted with a shy smile. "There's no heating at my place. And no warm water. "

Your appearance was a stunning middle ground between the scrupulously crafted look you donned for your little dates and the casual home-only mess Higuruma had learnt the day you got to talk for the first time. You were still dressed neatly but disarray had already sneaked with crumpled fabric, rolled up sleeves and the mess of your hair, barely tamed with a hair band.

A loose strand fell out of it, and you tugged it behind your ear, with the same smooth, sensual move he had learnt by heart. Higuruma swallowed, a bit too audibly for his comfort.

"I can offer warm tea and warm company," he moved to the side and gestured towards the apartment. At least this time the mess was more tamed; since he had been caught red-handed, he paid more attention to the state of his surroundings.

It couldn't possibly be a more obvious excuse, but Higuruma's thoughts were speeding too fast to do something more than taking a mental note. He intended to guide you towards the living room, but you took your guest rights to the fullest and chose a seat by the table in the kitchen from where you were piercing him with a curious gaze. In a calmer state Higuruma would pay more attention and take note how strategic your move was—but he was too busy masking his stress by preparing the tea and snacks. Before the doorbell, at least a shadow of the hair clip had existed at the back of his head. Now the whole trace was gone, replaced by all his dreams and worries packed into a single vortex of inner and somewhat controlled panic.

Why was he so nervous? He had no reason to delve into his thoughts anymore. All that was left was one of you finally tugging the rope to their side. You were right there, behind his back, twisting a strand of your hair around your finger, legs crossed just right to roll your dress up your thighs a little. Part of him was itching to turn and pull you into his arms, to bury his face into the back of your neck, to trace your tattoos and check how far they really reach. The other kept spraying the horny demon in him with cold water—and by far winning at that time.

If only you gave him a little more prominent sign…

"A hair clip?" As if reading his mind, you sprung forwards. "It looks like mine… Where did you get it?"

Higuruma almost dropped the cups with tea.

"Oh. That." He had never been blessed his experience with stress-taming than he did now. He needed only a single breath to look presentable again. "Well… Now it's my turn at the awkward merry-go-round. Was supposed to be a gift."

He set your cup in front of you, his hand almost free of trembling. Your gaze grazed over it for a second before it flicked back to the accessory, by "chance" placed right within your sight but out of reach, "Gift?"

"Replacement for the one I broke." Higuruma had no choice but to grab it himself and offer it to you on open palm. "I plead guilty and have already paid a fine."

You said nothing but he could read from your face his choice was simply perfect. You gently traced its edge, almost took it, but at the last time you withdrew, your eyes full of sultry gleam. "Thank you. It's so pretty. But you shouldn't have—"

"Oh, I should. And I loved it." Higuruma already knew where it was going. He felt sweat pearling at his temples, a single droplet traced down the side of his face. "It's but a pleasure to offer beautiful things to a beautiful woman."

You traced the clip again, with more prominent pressure this time, such a perfectly feigned hesitation.

"Then…" Your gaze wandered up and locked with his. "Would you like to clip it in?"

Higuruma's knees nearly gave up under him when you, no longer waiting for his answer, let your hair flow free. With a single shake of your head, you spilled it all over your shoulders for him to gather it again, smile dancing at the corners of your lips a shameless proof you knew exactly what you were doing.

Were his thoughts that obvious? Were his sinful dreams written all over his face? Was he being pulled into a trap from the very beginning?

As if entranced, Higuruma approached you from behind. Even with explicit permission he was more than gentle when he caressed your hair from the crown of your head to its tips. It was smooth like velvet, far more than he had imagined it to be after the brief contact.

The flame inside him churned and roared, pulse thudding in his ears muffled down all the other sounds. Hands shaking, he started gathering your hair to the back, into a single, thick thread he tried to hold firmly for the clip. He feared to tug too much; if he slipped once, he knew he wouldn't stop, the loose yet so heavy knot around his fingers just waiting to be tightened.

In the wildest fantasies flowing through his dreams Higuruma hadn't considered it to feel so good, almost too good to be real.

He couldn't hold it for longer, he let go, watched your hair spill again in awe, his throat dry and clenched. Threading fingers through it, he reached deeper, brushing at your scalp, and noting, pleased, a low, purr-like sound you made. Entrancing smoothness pulled him yet again, though, and he combed the strands to their tips, and returned to the crown of your head, over and over and one more time, and more—

"You don't have to be so gentle," you hummed, arching into his touch with no trace of shame. "I quite like it pulled."

Higuruma swallowed the hook together with the rod.

He gathered your hair into his fist, wrapped it around, and slowly—but with prominent power—pulled your head to the side, exposing your neck to himself. You mewled, following the move without further encouragement, giving him better access in the most arched, sweetest way possible. He leaned closer, his lips an inch away from your skin as he soaked in the familiar, sweet, intimate scent. The choice between possible routes was hard but eventually he settled on the most shameless one. He kissed your ear, brushed his lips right under it, and dived straight into the source of the fire burning him through all this time, through weeks that felt like ages.

The softness of your hair was even more intoxicating when Higuruma felt it against his face. The first tasting nudge found your approval, so he went for a shaky, almost desperate breath of your scent, so rich and so throughout yours. It was a sin to abandon it, but he knew he had to discover more—or else the doors to the forbidden garden might push him away and shut closed. Shaking and almost sobbing in immense pleasure and happiness, the lawyer trailed his kisses back to your neck, then down to the curve of your shoulder until he felt the seam of your dress under his lips.

"Hiromi…" You pleaded in whisper, for the first time calling him by his name. "Kiss me…"

Hand still tight in your hair, Higuruma tilted your head stronger to the side and leaned over your shoulder. Your noses brushed awkwardly before he finally found your lips. He expected it to be slow, just a little peck for a starter, but you apparently just waited for it. You grabbed him by the tie and pulled, your tongue slipping into his mouth without a warning nor hesitation. He let you take the lead at first but soon your advances weren't quite enough for his voracity, and he answered you with even greater eagerness.

It was his first kiss in so long and one of the very few so intense. You were barely stopping for a breath, one immediately pulling the other back when it halted. Higuruma's head was spinning, from lack of air and overflow of emotions. His heart was beating so fast that he danced on the line of fainting right in front of you, no wonder you guided him as you liked despite his hand clenched in your hair and kisses swallowing your breath.

You stood up and pushed him against the table, finally giving the both of you much deserved break and freeing each other of the tight clutch of your hands.

"Lemme," you nipped at his ear shortly after.

Gasping for air, Higuruma watched your advances with fascination. You unbuttoned his shirt with a casual knack and pawed at his hairy chest, trailing down the dark line towards the hem of his pants. Part of him was relieved to have his hard, almost painful, erection finally freed—the other dusted his cheeks with embarrassment. So fast and so easily… He wasn't a teenager anymore, his desperation was almost shameful.

Little did you care, almost shaking yourself when you fell to your knees and peeled his pants and underwear out of your way. You licked your lips at the sight of his hard, throbbing cock, and wrapped fingers around it. A few testing strokes later, you brushed a droplet of precum off his tip with a thumb, then leaned for a little, almost cute kiss.

"Shit…" Higuruma muttered through clenched teeth. For once forgetting about your hair, he held on to the table for his dear life and focused on not cumming right on spot. Unaware of his fight, you continued with teasing kisses and kitty licks towards the base. With the tip of your tongue teasing the sensitive skin of his balls you almost sent him flying; to stop orgasm from coming he bit his lip so hard he almost cut it to blood.

"So full…" You cooed, unawares of his struggle. Higuruma didn't dare to look at you—a futile effort as he could easily imagine what you were doing just by the feel of your lips and tongue at work.

"It's been… A while— Fuck!" As if it would help him if he held his breath and closed his eyes. Your mouth was so wet and hot and sucked him off with such fervor he was ready to beg you to slow down. It was illegal for a simple blowjob to feel so good; was it your skill or his desperation, all of it mixed with the tension building up relentlessly through the last few weeks—it didn't matter. Various thoughts were speeding through his mind, but he quite literally had no power to process them.

Higuruma mewled your name, a pitiful whimpering sound that clenched his chest with almost painful embarrassment. He felt your approving hum vibrating around his cock as you slid him into your throat, until you reached a depth comfortable for you, and started bobbing your head along his length. His imagination reached its peak of capability, drowned into comfortable darkness he desperately tried to enforce on his poor, tortured brain. So slick and hot, so tight when you hollowed your cheeks and sucked, balancing right on the thin line between ineffable pleasure and discomfort.

You were on a mission to suck him dry—and he had no power (nor desire) to oppose you.

Yet, with the tension relentlessly building and nearing its peak, Higuruma put every ounce of his might left and peeled one hand off the table to immediately tangle it in your hair. You chirped, pleased, around his cock, clearly expecting a pull towards—not backwards. Eyes wide open and dark with desire, you gazed at him with upper confusion. You didn't even close your lips, a string of saliva still connected them with the tip of his dick.

"N-not like that…" The lawyer managed to choke out between desperate draughts for air. "I want—"

Thank goodness you read his mind like an open book. Otherwise, he would stutter there to the kingdom come and back, like a dazed idiot he was.

"Bed?" You nuzzled your head into his palm. The temptation to pull grew stronger again, so strong that Higuruma's cock twitched just at the thought. He quickly withdrew, brushed his fingers down your face to wipe saliva off your lips and chin. At the desired level he hesitated—and brushed a little string of drool back into your mouth and deeper. If you were surprised, you hadn't showed it, instead opening wider for him and swirling your sinful tongue around his digits.

A wild idea crossed his mind, a kink he had tried with one of his past partners but hadn't quite brought it back until now as he was fucking your mouth with his fingers and staring at your drool pooling inside and dripping down your chin, first droplets falling on the front of your dress. He didn't dare to say it but a move, expression or the whole situation must have betrayed him yet again.

You pierced him with an understanding gaze and nodded.

Higuruma slowly withdrew his fingers and grabbed your chin, soon tilting your head back. With his throat so dry it took him quite a moment to gather enough drool, but you waited oh so patiently, your eyes closed and your hair flowing down your head with the heave of your heavy breathing.

He leaned down and let his spit slowly drip down from the tip of his tongue, straight into your wide open, waiting mouth. Your whole body trembled and a little mewl broke through your lips as you let it slide down your throat.

"Such a good girl…" The guttural, heavy with desire voice that got out of his throat surprised even him. "Swallowing everything for me…"

He did it two more times before he couldn't find more spit to share. Instead, he returned to torture you with his fingers, playing with your tongue and testing how far he can reach before you gag around them. With great pleasure he was surprised to not find this moment despite trying really hard.

"If you're gonna torture me like this—" You warned with an impish gleam in your eyes as soon as he gave you a break. "—I won't hold it for longer and make you cum with my mouth."

Higuruma leaned against the table and cooled his head down with a few deep breaths.

"Bed," he agreed with the unanswered question of yours and helped you get up.

Yet again you took the lead and straight up herded him to his bedroom. When and how you figured which was the right door, he had no idea, but he also didn't ponder over this fact too much, too busy with not tripping while kicking his pants out of the way. You both fumbled at the threshold, tangled in clothes you desperately tried to get rid of while kissing each other blindly, until the lawyer finally found an upper hand and pushed you inside and then on top of the bed.

You started rolling the dress up, but Higuruma shoved your hand out of the way and reached beneath you for the zipper. It gave up so easily he worried for a moment he broke something, but you just graciously wiggled out, freeing your shoulders and breasts. The sight messed with his momentum, a heavy lump stuck at his throat, and he had to close eyes for a moment to not cum on the spot.

You finished rolling your dress down your hips and snapped your legs open with great impatience, "What, have you changed your mind?"

Higuruma cursed under breath, wiped his face with both hands—and immediately dove for it much like a bird of prey. Avoiding the temptation of your hair at all costs, he focused on your tattoos instead, tracing them with his tongue and kissing. He had no idea you had so many of them, in so many interesting places he was dying to explore and to cover with hungry hickeys.

But he was also aware of the burning hard problem below his waist, so he didn't waste a droplet of time. He reached straight between your legs, hummed at the feel of soft bush brushing against his fingers and spread your labia open.

"So wet for me, baby girl?" He breathed against one of your nipples before sucking on it with fervor.

A needy mewl was your answer as you bucked your hips, trying to steal friction from his palm. He didn't hesitate from giving you all you wanted, two fingers sliding into you at once. Just the squelching tight sensation was enough for a wave of pleasure to crush against him; with a whimper Higuruma thrusted dry against your side, staining your skin with precum.

"Fuck, you're so sexy…" His voice was breaking with desperation, but he kept a reasonable pace with stretching you. Your tightness was so hot and intoxicating, but he worried he could hurt you if he hurried the matters too much. If he made a mess and embarrassment out of himself because of it, he would take it, as long as you hadn't felt any unwanted pain.

You read him right yet again and grabbed him by wrist, "I'm ready."

His next move hadn't met the same patience as you whined when he left you on the bed to look for condoms in the drawer.

"It's okay, I'm on pills." You pulled him back by the hem of his shirt and slid it away a moment later, leaving him completely naked.

Clawing at his shoulders you kept nudging him until he was back in his place, teeth grazing at your neck. You fumbled in sheets warming each other up and experimenting for the last time before the main event, both of you growing impatient beyond tolerance.

"How do you want it?" Higuruma rasped into your ear and bit at its shell. His cock throbbed with warning at the sweet mewl of yours; he knew he wouldn't last much longer if he kept edging himself.

"You can be rough," you whined without a hesitation as he pushed himself on top of you again. "I'll just tell you to stop, if needed. And hair—"

"Got you."

He pressed a quick kiss to your lips and gave you space to roll on your stomach and climb on your knees. He tried to not stare too much, just a glimpse of your ass arching for him, your hips swaying with invitation, put his blood pressure to alarming limits. Lining himself up at the best angle he could find, Higuruma kneeled between your legs and kneaded your cheeks. He loved how his fingers dipped into your soft flesh, but he didn't quite have enough time to appreciate everything you had to offer.

"Hair," you reminded him, looking over your shoulder at him with such heat in your eyes that a harsh shiver ran down his spine.

"I got you, my sweet girl." Higuruma leaned over your back and kissed the nape of your neck before taking a fist full of your hair. He hadn't pulled on it just yet, waited for the perfect moment when his cock slid into you and nestled comfy between your slick, tight walls.

He needed a break again, an inch away from an early finish. He kept the fire simmering by peppering you with bites and kisses, the grip on your hair kept satisfyingly strained until he felt he could move freely.

A single deep and shaky breath later Higuruma finally rose straight to his knees, pulling you with himself until you arched your back and mewled. A tinge of pain was audible in your voice, but your cunt fluttered around his cock, and you hadn't said anything, so he followed with the plan, trusting your words from a moment earlier.

"F-fuck…" He muttered as he bottomed out, hips pressed flush to your ass. "Such a good girl you are…"

You stated your limits clearly, but Higuruma didn't want to test his luck. The grip on your hair was more than enough to satisfy his wilder side—and still he refrained from yanking your head too much. Just enough to have your back tense like a string as you were taking each one of his deep, desperate thrusts. More out of curiosity than anything he smacked your ass with a juicy slap, the sight of your body rippling from the impact so powerful he had to slow down and wait through another dangerous close call.

"Hi… ro…" You struggled to call for him, one hand clawing at sheets, the other between your legs as you played with your clit. He clenched his teeth and spanked you again. You responded with loud and enthusiastic moans, the best music he heard in a long, long while.

The finish was really close. Higuruma's hand clenched hard on your hip, maybe even bruising you in process, but then his focus narrowed to your union only and its unbearably hot, slick sensation that kept swallowing him. All he needed was your high first; he didn't want to go there without satisfying you at least this much. Your sweet sounds and trembling body were giving him good guidance—and he kept repeating what he was doing until the tight knot in your abdomen finally snapped and you spasmed in his hold, the tight clench of your pussy sparking friction almost too intense for him.

It didn't take long for him to finish too; a few erratic thrusts later he spilled his seed deep in you and collapsed on top of you, pressing you tight to the mattress.

Catching on breath, almost blind from exertion, Higuruma kissed your neck right under the hairline and buried his nose at the back of your head. You didn't make any sound under him, and he worried he might have pressed you too hard—but as soon as he shifted his weight to side, you budged and protested with a weak mewl.

"Stay." You reached behind and threaded fingers through his hair. He shivered under the gentle touch, almost literally melting when you kept scratching at his scalp and playing with his sweaty strands.

"I'm staying," he promised and nuzzled close, flush against your back, cock still nestled deep in you. Frankly, even if he wanted, he didn't have much power left, just enough to roll to the side and collapse there for good. But he loved the intimacy of this moment even more than sex before, the warmth of your body, the rhythm of your pulse, the smell of your sweat covering your skin with a thin, sticky layer.

"Fuck, I think we need a shower." He mumbled to himself and chuckled, sure you had snoozed in his arms, but you answered the laughter and reached for his hand.

Higuruma gladly intertwined fingers with yours.

"I'd love to see your shower again." You kissed his knuckles, a smile pressed to your lips.

#higuruma x reader #higuruma hiromi x reader #higuruma x you #higuruma hiromi x you #higuruma x y/n #higuruma hiromi x y/n #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen x y/n #jjk x you #jjk x y/n #jjk #higuruma hiromi #female reader #bas writes #sinful

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error-dream-was-found · 19 days ago

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I just saw your idea about Quackity sucking at torture and I am SO intrigued 👀 Please do tell

(Also I absolutely love love love your writing <3)

Hiii, thank you for asking :)

And I'm happy to hear that you enjoy my writing <3

It's been a while since I came up with that idea and I can't seem to find my notes on it (I found like 15 other half forgotten AUs instead oops) but I'm pretty sure it came from some discussion with Flora.

The basic idea is that everything happens just as it does in canon and Quackity goes to torture Dream. This is where things get sketchy because as I said, this is a 100 % crack idea so ... what if Quackity just somehow managed to fuck up every single torture attempt?

I really wish I could find my notes on this because I know I had some specific ideas written down but let's go with what I remember. During the first visit I think he might've just underestimated Dream who in spite of being in the prison for a while now was still able to dodge Quackity and maybe even disarm him or something just it ends up with Sam having to interfere.

But it's okay! Quackity's got it! It was just a ... a minor inconvenience, nothing more. But ... things are just not working out during his second visit either, nor during the third one or the fourth one.

Dream is totally not giving fuck about what Quackity wants and for the sake of crack Quackity just miserably fails in all his attempts to torture Dream in the most ridiculous ways possible.

Like, he will get his axe stuck in the obsidian and can't pull it out, he drops a harming potion and hits himself instead of Dream, he sets himself on fire on accident (that lava wall had no business being over there!), he fails to realize that Dream is actually good in strategic games and his plan to hurt Dream for losing a game fails when the game drags on for way too long (bonus points if he loses somehow). Just some very weird (and hopefully somewhat funny) stuff happens.

Some time he doesn't even get to try his hand at torture because he gets carried away with wedding preparation and all (just imagine him forcing Dream help with choosing the decorations or something lol)

After his fight with Karl Dream is forced to be the therapist (he has no escape while Quackity cries about the state of his relationship), least to say Dream is very confused why Quackity thought he is the right person to ask about the relationship problems (srsly Q have you seen the state of his relationships???)

At this point Dream himself might try to give him tips, look he is not a fan of getting tortured but this is just sad, okay?

Perhaps he will manage to actually hurt Dream at some point but by then I think he would be too used to failing that it actually freaks him out more than it freaks out Dream himself. The rest of the "session" was spend fretting over Dream because god man you're bleeding! Dream is just there like ... isn't this what you wanted? And well yeah but also no! (Q has some very mixed feelings)

Overall though I think Q would maim himself in that cell more than he ever did to Dream. On accident of course. I never figured out the logistics of this one but it'd be hella funny if Q somehow managed to idk cut of his own finger or something of the sort which would just end up with him freaking out and Dream having to try to calm him down while also calling for Sam to bring a healing potion

I know that it's supper cannon inaccurate but it's really just a crack idea without any real plot behind it 😅

#thanks for asking I love talking about my silly ideas :)#please ignore the grammar errors my autocorrect loves to screw me over 🤦‍♀️#c!dream #c!quackity #c!dream and c!quackity #dsmp #dreblr #dream smp #dsmp au #can i tell you a story?

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angstyhikka · 1 year ago

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Lev in touch! Hikka’s out, I possessed her))) she’s eating chips with her brain turned off while I’m explaining the lore to you >:D

So.*loud long surp*. in Anarchists there is a LUZ. she ended up on the Islands after falling into a lake, which turned out to be a portal to the world of demons. the King and Jester quickly picked up her there. she seemed fun to them. Philip mistook her for a kitten, and she, in fact, now walks under this nickname. she lives in their castle above titan’s head. and when she wants to get out of there, she asks Collie (specifically Collie because if Phil lets her down, firstly, it will be unsafe, and secondly, Luz cannot be picked up, she has daddy issues). sometimes they forget to feed her, but she copes with it herself. fortunately, anarchists have a fridge and, in principle, all the best things from the human realm. they even have a TV on which they watch anime. once they organized a “One Piece Month”))) then they flew around the islands, found more or less suitable candidates for the roles of characters, turned them into these characters and forced them to act out the roles (precisely they forced them, because making them obedient puppets was boring, not Interesting, Phil said)

Luz watched these idiots having fun for a while and was like, “Well, I see that they have no intention of harming people. They’re just idiots who don’t understand what they’re doing.” at least she hopes so. at some point Luz thought, “I can fix them.” and she had a moralizing conversation with the boys, trying to somehow reach out to them. but, as you understand, moralizing conversations affect people only when they are rubbed into them by someone with authority and force. and Luz has neither one nor the other, she's just a kitten.

Luz realized that she didn’t belong here, that her attempts to affect on K ‘n J were pointless, and decided to go her own way. She said goodbye to the boys. they got upset and after she left they started fighting because of what had happened, saying, “It’s your fault that Kitten left us!”. word for word, Philip went to let off steam, and Collie stayed at home. aaaaaand then the plot of the comic that we’re working on now happened. We're already half done! heading towards the 30 page mark......

Hikka in touch! finished eating my chips and is ready to briefly explain the rest of the pictures while you are already stuffed Lore about Luz phpphphphp

The second picture is what the pocket found just after getting out of the lakes. K ‘n J were racing through the forest on “beepbeepkas” (they maneuvered right through the air between the trees), but belatedly they stopped to check out what kind of person that was, standing there sticking it in, not understanding anything. Collie's first line was "you look interesting" and then Phillip were like "we're taking her with us"

Third picture: we will have Hollow Mind. Not saying any more context yet because there are spoilers :))

Fourth: Phill can do gypsy tricks, which are valued among them precisely because without magic they rely on sleight of hand and cunning. Luz was not impressed

Well, the last one is an unused frame for a comic that we turned into a meme. Don't thank us :3

#the owl house #toh anarchist au #phillip wittebane #belos #emperor belos #luz noceda #hunter #hunter clawthorne #toh collector #jester collector #phill the demon king

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gallierhouse · 5 months ago

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Some thoughts on Louis and Lestat’s reunion in New Orleans.

First, I don’t think it makes Lestat look better, nor does it redeem him. He still did literally everything he was accused of; he was just sad about it after, and we still see him mistreating a fledgling he presumably made for the sole purpose of being his personal DoorDasher. He mostly looks pathetic, which can be charming, but it’s still pathetic.

Second, I don’t think Louis is forgiving Lestat so much as he’s allowing himself to move on. He’s been punishing himself by keeping himself away from Lestat because he couldn’t forgive Lestat for his role in Claudia’s death. When he finds out that Armand orchestrated the trial, nothing about Lestat’s role in Claudia’s death truly changes. He was still at the trial, he still said all those things, he still failed to save Claudia. It’s just that Louis has someone else to blame instead. He loves Lestat, he always has. This is his out. This is him getting the freedom to love Lestat again without feeling guilty. This is him getting the freedom to see Lestat without betraying the memory of their daughter. This isn’t Louis forgiving Lestat, this is Louis pretending Lestat never did anything worth forgiving, and this is Louis finally allowing himself to let go of all the resentment and remember the love.

Third, when Louis thanks Lestat for the gift of vampirism, and when he tells Lestat it’s not his fault, and he comforts Lestat and whispers sweet nothings to him, it’s not him retroactively erasing the abuse or the pain or the arguments or the fights or any of that. It’s him finally being able to see their marriage from Lestat’s perspective. For the first time in a century he’s able to see that Lestat did so much out of love — and made mistakes out of the same love — and he’s able to be grateful for that, and to see their marriage from a new place. He’s able to see that his turning wasn’t just Lestat cursing him, or trying to isolate him from his family, or trying to have him for himself, it was also love. Something being love doesn’t negate it also being possession, or spite, or a million other things, but I think that scene is Louis being able to see the love in Lestat’s actions, along with the possessiveness, and the spite, and the resentment, and all the pain he’s told Daniel about in the span of two interviews. It doesn’t mean Lestat didn’t abuse him, it doesn’t mean Lestat was a good husband or a good father, all it means is that Louis is seeing everything in a new light, without the burden of having to blame Lestat for their daughter’s death. Is it accurate for him to exonerate Lestat from the role he played in Claudia’s death? That’s up to the audience. But it’s easy to understand why that would be such a relief for Louis.

Fourth, Louis is finally getting to grieve Claudia with the only other person in the world who loved her. Her father. Her maker. The man who bought her dolls and took her to the theatre and taught her to hunt. The only other person in the whole world who raised her, the only other person in the world who still loves her, the only other person in the world who could even begin to understand how much Louis loved her. Don’t you think that’s a relief? He’s been alone in his grief for so long. More than half a century of sitting alone with his grief, unable to even talk to anyone else about her, thinking that only other person who walks the Earth who remembers her as a daughter murdered her. If you lost a child, and you couldn’t save her, and you couldn’t bring her back, wouldn’t you want to remember her with the only other person who loved her the way you did? The only other person who would remember her as a daughter, and not as a killer, or an employee, or an interloper? Wouldn’t you want to grieve with the only person left who loves her? Even if he fucked up, even if he failed her, even if he failed both of you, he’s still the only person left who remembers her and who loves her. He’s the only person left you could mourn with. For the first time, Louis isn’t alone in his grief. Don’t you think that’s a relief that cuts through the resentment and the regret? There’s someone who understands his pain. There’s someone who remembers his daughter. There’s someone who misses his daughter. Their daughter. The daughter they made, the daughter they failed, the daughter they couldn’t save. Their daughter.

I think Louis’ actions make sense. Louis isn’t the audience surrogate, nor is he the measure of morality in the show. He’s just Louis. He finally gets to grieve his daughter with the only other person who still loves her. He finally gets to see the man he loved and still loves without having to blame him for killing her. Of course he’s emotional, of course he’s forgiving. He never really wanted to hate Lestat, but he had to for Claudia. Now he doesn’t have to anymore. It’s a relief. It’s forgiveness. It’s finally getting to mourn and move on.

#interview with the vampire #iwtv #louis de pointe du lac #lestat de lioncourt #daniel molloy

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ggiantsbane · 7 months ago

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A Gentle Flame in the Wild North

Pairing: Tormund Giantsbane x reader

Summary: A wounded Tormund Giantsbane returns to camp after a victorious battle, catching the attention of a gentle-hearted woman who typically avoids him due to their conflicting personalities. Despite their differences, she finds herself caring for him, leading to a slow-burn romance as they navigate the realities of war and discover the depths of their feelings for each other.

Warnings: Contains scenes of violence and injuries from battle.

Word count: 867 words.

: ̗̀➛ All the writing is my own. Please do not repost it anywhere else without my consent.

: ̗̀➛ English is not my first language - nor my second, third or fourth.

The air was thick with the scent of blood and victory as the survivors of the battle returned to the camp. Among them, Tormund strode, his red beard matted with sweat and blood, his great frame bearing the marks of the fierce conflict. He was hailed as a hero, yet his eyes betrayed the pain he sought to conceal.

You watched from a distance, your heart heavy with worry. Your interactions with Tormund had always been strained; his rough mannerisms clashed with your own gentle nature. As a southerner thrust into the harsh realities of the North, you found solace in quiet moments and simple pleasures, far removed from the wildness embodied by Tormund.

But now, as you witnessed him returning wounded and weary, a new emotion stirred within you - compassion. Despite your differences, you couldn't ignore the ache in your heart at the sight of his suffering.

When the camp finally settled, you found yourself drawn to Tormund's side, driven by an instinct you couldn't quite comprehend. As you approached, you saw him wince with each step, his injuries more severe than he let on.

"Tormund," you said softly, your voice barely above a whisper. "Let me help you."

Tormund grunted in discomfort, but he made no move to stop you. In the flickering lights of the campfire, you began to tend to his wounds, your gentle touch against his weathered skin.

"You shouldn't be wasting your time on me, love," Tormund muttered, his voice gruff yet tinged with gratitude.

"I don't consider it a waste," you replied, your eyes meeting his. "You fought bravely out there. You deserve to be taken care of."

As the night wore on, you worked in silence, the only sound the crackle of flames and the occasional hiss of pain from Tormund. But despite the lack of words, there was a quiet understanding between you, a shared bond forged in the crucible of war.

Days turned into weeks, and still, you remained by Tormund's side, tending to his wounds regularly and offering quiet companionship. With each passing moment, the barriers between you began to crumble, replaced by a growing sense of understanding and connection.

In those quiet moments, as you sat by his side, you learned of Tormund's past - of battles fought and victories won, but also of loss and longing. And in turn, you shared pieces of yourself, opening up in ways you never thought possible.

Slowly but surely, a bond began to form between you, forged in the fires of adversity and tempered by the trials of war.

One evening, as you sat by the fire, Tormund spoke, his voice softer than usual. "Thank you, love. For everything."

You smiled gently, the warmth of the fire reflected in your eyes. "It's the least I could do, Tormund. You've been through enough."

"I never thought I'd find someone like you in these frozen wastes," Tormund admitted, his gaze meeting yours. "Someone who sees past the wilderness and finds the man beneath."

You felt your cheeks flush at his words, a flutter of something unfamiliar stirring in your chest. "You're not as wild as you pretend to be, Tormund. There's a kindness in you that few people have."

As the days passed, your bond with Tormund only deepened, until it seemed as though you were two halves of a whole, destined to be together.

But even as you reveled in the newfound warmth of your connection, a shadow loomed on the horizon. Word arrived of a new threat, one that threatened to tear apart the fragile peace that had settled over the North.

As the camp stirred with preparations for the coming storm, you found yourself standing alongside Tormund, ready to face whatever challenges lay ahead.

"You don't have to do this," Tormund spoke, his voice gruff with concern. "It's too dangerous."

"I'm not going to leave you to face this alone," you replied, your voice steady despite the fear gnawing at your heart. "We're in this together, Tormund."

And though the road ahead was uncertain, one thing remained clear - together, you would weather the storm, bound by a love that defied all odds.

As you gazed into Tormund's eyes, you saw reflected in them the same depth of feeling that burned within your own heart. And in that moment, amidst the chaos and uncertainty of war, you knew that no matter what the future held, you would face it together, united in a love that was as wild and untamed as the North itself.

#tormund giantsbane #tormund giantsbane x reader #tormund giantsbane x y/n #tormund giantsbane x fem!reader #tormund giantsbane x f!reader #tormund giantsbane fic #game of thrones #game of thrones fic #reader insert #tormund giantsbane imagine #game of thrones imagine

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littlelovelyra · 6 months ago

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Now is not the time, nor the place.

Gale x FemTav/Reader(f)

Word count: ~1,914

Warnings: fluff(?) , Fingering, hand jobs, mouth stuff, kinda? C*m shot?

MINORS DNI

Disclaimer: I literally always put a disclaimer that I am by no means a writer, I just day dream a lot to escape my hectic work days and my somewhat chaotic life so I write down my day dreams and revisit them sometimes. Decided to publish them here so its easy for me to find. If it at least entertain one person thats a win for me :'D

Summary:

Having arrived at Last Light Inn several hours ago, your party convened and, following a discussion with Jaheira, reached a consensus to divide the patrol duties to ease the burden. Prior to this decision, after battling Kar'Niss,Gale openly confessed his physical attraction toward you only to immediately extinguish any flame that thought may have produced. Now, as chance would have it, both of you find yourselves on duty, strolling along the docks of Last Light Inn, having determined your partners through a draw of names. Suspicious.

___________________________

“Now’s not the time nor place.” What. The. Fuck. Gale. Why even bother saying it at all? You curse the foolish wizard in your mind, focusing on the two small pouches placed in the middle of the table where you and your companions are seated, trying not to shoot daggers in his direction. You can feel his side glances as he looks at you.

“Well, as much as I love us sitting around and staring at one another—because who wouldn’t want to stare at me—who’s going to be the first to draw a name?” Astarion looks around the table, taking us all in. We’re all looking pretty tired, and no one wants to take the leap, fearing they might draw “first watch” from the second pouch after selecting their partner from the first.

“Oh gods above, fine, I’ll do it.” Astarion reaches his hand into the first pouch, retrieves a name, and then dips his hand into the second, pulling out a small piece of parchment. He clears his throat. “Well, Shadowheart, I guess you and I are taking tomorrow’s watch,” he says as a slow smirk spreads across his face. Lucky bastard, you think to yourself. As everyone else gathers the courage to draw, the order goes as follows:

Astarion / Shadowheart: Second Night

Karlach / Wyll: Third Night

Lae’Zel / Halsin: Fourth Night

You curse under your breath at the absolute joke that is your luck right now. Though, you feel luck might not have anything to do with it. You suspect Gale has somehow played his magic hand in this. You can practically feel his smugness vibrating across the table from you. As much as you care for him, these past few weeks have been confusing. From his reaction to the moment you shared in the Weave, to his dismissal at the tiefling party when you sought him out. He told you to go “enjoy the festivities,” which led you to a pretty little clearing with a vampire spawn—an experience you note never to repeat. Then, just before entering the Shadow-Cursed Lands, he received his charge from Mystra and accepted it without considering anyone else. To top it all off, he basically admitted his attraction to you and immediately shot it down. All this hot and cold behaviour has been giving you more headaches than the damn tadpole in your head.

Releasing a soft sigh, you push yourself back from the table and stand up, eventually meeting his gaze. “Come on, Gale, we’re up first. Jaheira has assigned us to the dockside for our patrol.” You keep your tone cool and matter-of-fact. You will not make a fool of yourself chasing someone who clearly does not want to be chased. With all the chaos of dealing with the cultists, you have no time or energy for these petty games of the heart. He either wants you or he doesn’t, and it seems it’s the latter.

Gale follows you as you walk towards your quarters. As you reach your door, you look back at him. “Wait here, I need to change. These clothes are disgusting after killing that drider. I won’t be long. Maybe you should change too—it’s going to be a long night. Meet me back here in ten minutes.” Pressing your lips together awkwardly, you watch him hold your stare for a moment before giving a slight nod. He turns on his heel and heads toward the shared quarters. You’re grateful that your companions graciously agreed to give you the only private room in the Last Light Inn; gods know you need a bit of privacy to collect your thoughts.

In your room, you quickly change out of your clothes, wipe yourself down with a washcloth, redress, and braid your hair back. Looking in the mirror, you can see how tired you are from the journey. Closing your eyes, you mutter a short prayer to Selûne for the strength to get through the evening. A soft knock at the door catches your attention, and you cross the room to open it. Gale stands there with a fresh set of clothes, his hair now tamed, and even a bit of his beard trimmed. His eyes are as bright as ever, always seeming deep in thought, making you wonder what’s going on in his mind. “Stop it”, you think to yourself, “Now is not the time.”

You usher him out of the doorway and lead the way outside, down to the docks. You notice how close he is walking next to you, the silence is loud but every now and then his hand accidentally brushes up against yours and sends a soft shiver running up your arm. Again you wonder if he is using any magic to conjure up that effect on you.

Walking to the edge of the dock, you scan the perimeter. Everything is quiet; it all seems as it should. You lean over the railing and glance at your reflection in the water, exhaling loudly. You stay there for a moment with your eyes shut, taking in the sounds of the flames softly flickering on the nearby torches and the occasional gentle splash of the water. It’s the most peaceful you’ve felt in a long time.

“Lost in thought?” Gale says as he places himself next to you, leaning down with his arms supporting him on the railing. You turn your head to face him and notice that his face is mere inches from yours. You linger there for a moment, your eyes scanning his face and finally your gaze falls to his lips, you wonder how they would feel pressed against yours. He catches your stare and the left side of his mouth pulls up into a soft smirk.

“Actually, I’m not thinking at all.” You say pushing yourself up you ready yourself to leave this side of the dock and continue your sweep of the area. As you turn to leave, Gale grabs your hand. You turn to him puzzled.

“Let’s stay a moment longer, shall we? It’s quiet, and nothing will happen if we take a few selfish moments for ourselves.” His thumb traces lazy circles on the back of your hand, releasing a flurry of butterflies in your stomach. You watch his gentle movements, marvelling at how hands so powerful can also be so tender. Your thoughts drift to how those very same hands might feel exploring your body, familiarising themselves with your secret places while bringing you to complete ecstasy. Your cheeks begin to flush at the mental image you have painted for yourself and it hasn’t gone unnoticed by him as he offers a soft clearing of his throat to pull your attention back to reality.

“I meant every word I said, by the way.” He looks at you, expecting a response, but you're unsure what to say. Words elude you, so you remain silent, hoping he'll continue—and he does, simply because he’s Gale.

“I have never wanted you more than I do now. Seeing your cheeks flush just then only made my desire that much more uncontrollable. I keep waiting for the right moment to kiss you, to show you how much I want you. It has to be perfect—you deserve that. But perhaps, just for tonight, we can allow ourselves a bit of imperfection. Or an appetiser before the main course, if you will.”

He raises his hand and gently lifts your face towards his. Slowly, he lowers his lips to yours, tenderly moulding them to fit around yours. A soft whimper escapes your mouth, and you feel your knees shake as if they're about to give way to this moment. Sensing your thoughts, Gale places his other hand on your hip, steadying you and pulling you closer to him. Everything around you seems to disappear, and all that exists in this moment are the two of you, completely lost in each other's embrace.

As he starts to pull away, he leads you to the covered area of the dock—more private, secluded—and you see the intent in his stare. Slow he brings the two of you down onto the deck, gently he lowers you to your back while he positions himself above you. His lips come crashing down to yours once again but this time with urgency. He uses his free hand to roam its way under your clothes exploring your soft curves and taking his time familiarising himself with the shape of you. He delicately rubs the pad of his thumb over your peaked sensitive nipple which causes you to gasp at the sensation, heat pooling in your core. You shift your hips up towards him instinctively and he groans into your mouth while your tongues dance together. His hand slithering down, snaking its way to your heated centre. Slipping under your panties his fingers slide between your folds, you inhale sharply at the sensation. Gods above nothing in your fantasies even compare to what this feels like in real time. Gale lets out a low groan. “Mhm. You are so ready for me my love. I want that to be perfect so this will just have to do for now.” as he finishes his sentence he slides two of his fingers inside you and curls them upward. Slowly pumping them in and out while his kisses become frenzied.

Your hands go exploring on their own and you find him, hard and ready. You can feel it pulsing through his trousers. The growl that escapes his lips is inviting enough for you, reaching in as you pull his length out and begin stroking him tenderly at first and then more desperately as you feel him rocking his hips in time with your hand. His hand is still working inside you and the two of you become desperate as the pace picks up. You lift your shirt up exposing your breasts with your spare hand and he brings his head down as he sucks in the swollen peak of your breast. You can feel it, the two of you are so close.

“Gale.. Gale.. I’m going to…” You're breathless now. You can’t get it out, your head is dizzying.

He brings his mouth to your ear, his breath hot as he whispers; “Let go. Cum for me”.

That’s all it takes. Your whole body shatters around him as his name escapes your lips in pure unfiltered ecstasy. He comes undone seconds later, you feel a warm splash on your bare stomach and he brings his head down to rest his forehead on yours. Softly he kisses you again before you both straighten out your clothing and smooth your hair. Silently you sit there leaning into him on the deck looking out over the water.

“I have a confession to make.” He says scattering kisses down your cheek.

“Mhmmm… Let me guess? You rigged the pouches somehow to be partnered with me tonight?” You say looking at him.

He flashes you a wicked smile and kisses you deeply as you both stand up to continue a sweep of the perimeter. You are on duty after all and now is not the time.. nor the place.

#baldur's gate iii #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #gale x tav #gale x reader #gale dekarios #gale dekarios x reader #gale of waterdeep #the wizard of waterdeep #gale fanfic #gale fanfiction #bg3 fic #bg3 fanfic #fanfic #gale fic

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ichigoromi · 6 months ago

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𝐌𝐢𝐲𝐚 𝐀𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐮 𝐎𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭 | 𝐋𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐆𝐨

my writing have become rusty but i was getting into emotional...and yeah i wanted to write an angst piece for a long time~

Pairing: Miya Atsumu (timeskip) x fem reader! (she/her)

Genre(s): angst

Warning(s): emotional cheating, lots of sad stuff.

Please proceed with caution.

Miya Atsumu 宮侑

Realizing the person that you have loved for your whole life was just using you as a replacement hurts like pieces of sharp glass shards scraping all over your scarred heart. Constantly stabbing on all the broken pieces until you just became numb to the pain. By the time he realized that he hurt you so deeply, it was far too late to salvage the pieces and repair the wounded heart.

It was not even that difficult to notice the minute details that Atsumu keeps in his life to remind himself of her. Their past, the present without her, and the future were left unknown by numerous factors.

You were the factor X, the outlier in his life. The outlier that was not supposed to have any relations with the compatible factors.

But…with that confident and cocky personality of Atsumu, you instantly got attracted to him. An outlier should have stayed from afar and observed, not mixed in with the main group.

Hana and Atsumu were the ultimate couple. They grew up together, have been each other's support system since young and she was Atsumu’s ideal girlfriend. Hana was everything that Atsumu needed. Their love for each other was the sweetest and perfect, everyone thought they would last together.

However, life has its own way of telling a story.

After high school, Hana moved to Tokyo to become a model and broke up with Atsumu.

That was when you decided to take the chance and pursue your first love.

It was not easy but after two years of traveling back and forth from Tokyo to Osaka, you got the title of ‘Atsumu’s Girlfriend’ and the privileges of becoming his girlfriend. You thought life would be easier if you become his girlfriend.

Life has a bitter way of saying ‘fxxk you’ in your face.

On the first year of your anniversary, you were going to surprise Atsumu by turning up at one of his games after he announced that you two were dating publicly. You even got his jersey and got all dolled up for the sake of surprising him.

The first shard.

You spotted Hana in the VIP first row, in Atsumu’s personal jersey. Even after dating for a year, Atsumu still did not allow you to even take one shirt from his closet. But, his ex-girlfriend could wear it for a public event.

Instead of staying to watch the game, you decided to head back to Tokyo.

Not one single call nor a message.

The second shard.

Their old couple rings, past love letters and their old photos still lingered at their new apartment that they got together. It was slowly suffocating you but you believed that you two had a chance and even moved in together.

The third shard.

Endless comparison between Hana and you. It was always ‘Hana used to do this for me…’ or ‘If Hana could, why can’t you?’ but never a thank you for trying or just trying to be there for your girlfriend of four years.

But Hana was his best friend and you were just some random stranger that decided to barge in their life eight years ago.

The fourth shard.

Birthdays, graduations, job celebrations, important dates, he was never there. One call from Hana, he was out of the door.

And, the cycle repeats.

Till you become mentally and physically drained.

“Atsumu, is it me or Hana?”

You saw how he hesitated and struggled to answer you, but deep down…you knew his response.

It will always be Hana for him.

Without even waiting for his reply, you head to your room to pack your stuff. Five years together, and this was how it ended.

“Are you leaving?” Your hand tightens around the one and only gift that he remembered to buy in your five year relationship.

You threw the necklace into the bin and nodded your head at him. He grabbed your hand to stop you from packing your clothes into your suitcase.

“Atsumu, why are you stopping me? Isn’t it time for us to end? You never let go of Hana and never will. I tried to…I tried very hard but all you did was to break my heart into a million pieces. If I don’t leave you, we are just making our lives difficult. So, Atsumu, please let me go. I can’t do this anymore.” You begged him, tears streaming down your pale cheeks. His grip loosened and you swiftly got out of the apartment before you regret it.

Atsumu was scared to be alone. When he and Hana first broke up, he was a wreck but only you stayed by his side. And soon, you became familiar and constantly pursued him so he gave it a try.

But everything that he did together with you, reminds him of Hana.

She never left his mind. Hana could never be replaced.

Then he hurt you in the process of his own healing process.

Everything was too late.

Nothing can’t be fixed anymore.

Atsumu was left alone again.

You were left with a broken heart that can’t be pieced together again.

A short and impromptu piece written, and I hope you guys enjoyed this!

Stay safe and healthy:)

With lots of love,

Roro🍓

Reblogs are appreciated!

#haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #atsumu miya #miya atsumu scenarios #miya atsumu imagines #haikyuu atsumu #atsumu angst #haikyuu angst #atsumu headcanons

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dailyadventureprompts · 1 year ago

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Villain: Duke Sabrian, the Trueborn Bastard

The barred windows of the carriage let in only cold mountain air and the endless procession of crucifixes marking the road up to the Duke's castle. You idly wonder if he's picked out which ones he'll nail you and your friends to once you've told him that you've failed.

Though he styles himself the gallant exemplar of everything the noble warrior class could be, Duke Sabrian is in truth the embodiment of all the failings of his social order: brutish, bloody-minded, and blind to any plights beyond his own. More than a decade past Sabrian fought a war against his own sibling to seize control of their duchy and since then has ruled from an isolated mountain fortress fearing reprisals from the people he subjugates.

As long as the Duke rules things will continue to get worse, and it's only a matter of time before the party and those they care about get caught up in it.

Adventure Hooks:

Exhausted after delving their first dungeon the party are shaken down by a group of the duke's men, who are better armed and carry the threat of reprisal should the party draw steel on them. Perhaps it's better to give the toughs what they want and live to fight another day... say after finding out where the guards get drunk so they can trick/charm/beat the location of the stolen treasure out of them.

Countess Ledrick has a problem. Despite being one of the mercenaries who helped win Sabrian his throne she was never formally sworn in as one of the duke's vassals when she took over her lands and is widely regarded as little better than an upjumped brigand. Now a large shipment of tribute heading for the Duke's council has gone missing on the borders of her land, and it's only a matter of time before the blame comes to rest on her. She'll need all the help she can in recovering the lost treasure which just might be the party's ticket to a position in her court.

While out in the market a couple of the party members are approached by a woman in a hood doing her very best to try to seem inconspicuous. Through smiles and whispered pleas she begs them to help her hide from the guards, palming them a small handful of jewels in the attempt. If the party gives her aid she'll eventually introduce herself as Mina, keeping most of her story to herself but letting slip that she stole something precious from Sabrian and that she needs their help getting out of the duchy and into some neighbouring lands. It'd be an arduous journey, made even more arduous when in the next town the party discover posters and criers proclaiming that the duke's wife Minerva has been kidnapped, promising a great reward for her return and a terrible punishment for those who made off with her.

Background: While many born into the nobility feel confined by their station, Sabrian always knew he was made to rule. He was one of those people who excelled at the standards he was expected to meet, for whom the path of life is not only a straight line but part of a larger destiny that gave order to the world.

The problem was that Sabrian was the younger son, and his older sister chafed against noble life as much as he suited it. Sabrina was high minded, well read, and was possessed of several strange notions. The first being that those who own and govern the land owed something to those that lived upon it, the second being that her name was Solace, not Sabrina. The third was that she was not a woman, simply a person. The fourth and perhaps most outrageous was that she they would not be taking a husband, nor even a lover for the purposes of producing heirs and rather than just handing over their claim on the duchy to their well deserved brother like so often happened when the noble family tree refused to branch they would instead be creating some kind of made up of council made up of their vassals the elected mayors from the duchy's largest towns.

Sabrian wasn't having any of it, his sibling had clearly gone mad and was denying both of them (but mostly him) their birthright. After years of arguing, petitioning their mother on her death bed, and an outright threat of banishment from the now ascendant Duke Solace, Sabrian went out, raised himself an army, and went to war with his softhearted kin. The fighting was worse than anyone could have imagined, the people rose in Solace's defence and Sabrian had to resort to brutal tactics to put them down burning villages and farmland in the drought of summer and marching his followers over the ashes towards their next target.

Solace's head was delivered to him in a basket the same day he took the throne, and for the decade since Sabrian can't hold court without remembering the reproachful look in his sibling's dead eyes.

Further Adventures:

Knowing the common people hold no love for him, the duke governs from an ancestral bastion high in the mountains, a cold and lofty perch quite suitable for an unassailable tyrant who thinks himself above all. His remoteness and unwillingness to bother has paradoxically allowed his vassals the ability to govern their lands the way they see fit, which leads to a patchwork of graft, neglect, and personal ambition. In recent years Sabrian has sought to curve this independent streak by putting more and more resources behind his personal guard, who are now commanded by a former bountyhunter famed for her ruthlessness.

Increasing isolation gives the party a chance to rally together a resistance against the duke, but such a coalition might be built on shoddy foundations. A sizeable minority of his underlings feel hard done by him and might turn if given the right encouragement, though they may prove untrustworthy. Solace's old supporters have been ruthlessly hunted and will be mistrustful of newcomers, especially those that fought under the usurper. Minerva's clan are powerful nobles in their own right in a neighboring territory, and once they have their daughter back would be happy to throw their support behind the party's plan to oust the useless tyrant, provided the party are willing to play ball with them.

Sabrian has been unravelling, retreating from public life, executing his servants an courtiers for suspected treason, even keeping his formerly loving wife locked in a tower for the better part of a year. In the ten years since he married Minerva to secure her parent's support for his usurpation he has been unable to father a child, no matter what healers he turns to or what concubines he lays with. The inability to produce an heir was one of his primary reasons for going to war with Solace, and now he is failing in that exact same noble duty. This rather ironic fate was delivered unto him by Litirenn, god of farmland and cultivation, as punishment for burning one of the god's shrines during his rampage through the countryside ( along with the shrinekeeper who was an outspoken proponent of Solace's reforms. The god is going to be watching the party's actions closely if they set themselves in opposition to the duke, giving them a nudge now and again, ensuring the land rises to support them, that kid of thing.

Art 1

Art 2

#villain noble #rebelion #mid level #rescue mission #bandits #mountain villain #villain #encounter town #encounter city #encounter market

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missinghan · 11 months ago

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falling asleep in a time machine ⤖ bang chan

❖ genre : mafia au; fluffy angst; hurt/comfort; female reader insert

❖ word count : 6,9k.

❖ warning : swearing, implied major character death, mention of arson, depictions of vomiting, killing, blood, death, can be brutal (!!!), delusional happy ending.

❖ summary : four times you try to go back in time and save chan; or alternatively, you keep dreaming about chan to see if there is a way to undo his death when in reality there isn’t — from the world of illicit & priceless.

❖ author’s note : just finished my first term of uni (like actually the first term ever) and I’m so dead inside so here’s a silly little something. I can’t use pts anymore so pls bear with the banner *cries and dusts off this old blog* also I try to explain here why Chan was so attached and pissed off when mc stole his mother’s ring even though it’s accidental.

first attempt —

There are three missions that have altered the course of your and Chan’s relationship.

The first mission goes back to when you were still going on heists and Ryujin had foolishly put a piece of Chan’s mother’s sentiments into your pocket. Neither you nor Chan have come to know or like each other much before it.

The second one is the mansion with a bomb planted in the basement and Chan got locked inside a conference room with a three-layered door, one of them made from the same metal as the fucking Titanic. The third mission involves a casino where the Germans and Italians came together to push Chan toward a dead-end they had cultivated for the Devil himself, to his ultimate demise. They are all too arrogant to admit that Chan will take over the entirety of the East Asian market before any of them can start rolling in their graves.

Three missions of importance and not long after that, you and Chan have agreed to never go on a mission without each other. An unwritten contract. An unspoken promise. Nothing that the mafia engages in is legal so everything runs on trust, on how much faith you are willing to give those who you keep close.

However, there is a fourth mission that the Underworld records will fail to keep because even only a minuscule part of the Bang family is informed about this—how their precious heir has been summoned to bring home the girl he loves.

“Would you do laundry and taxes with me?”

“That’s an odd way to propose to someone, Y/N. And please, you’re asking an obvious question.” Chan looks up at you from his book. His smile is gentle, soft at the corners with his dimples sinking in—it’s how you know that he means it—the way it usually is these days. The way it has been for the past year. It is almost obscure, you think, how you both would have wanted each other’s head on a stick a year ago before one of you managed to make the other person cry out of gratitude.

You lift the book away from his face, glimpsing at the cover. Because Chan is an absolute heathen, he has been reading No Longer Human and you’re being annoying about it because he hasn’t come out to train with you for two days already. “Are you telling me you’ll say ‘no’?”

“We’re already doing laundry and taxes together. We will just have matching rings and a signed piece of paper,” Chan gives you a pointed look; he always looks so serious whenever he wants to correct you as if your sarcasm is that dry. “So it naturally implies as a ‘yes’, idiot,” he nags, even though he doesn’t mean the last part.

“Oh how you wound me, love,” you bite back, even though you don’t mean it either. “Chan, come on. You’re locking yourself up in a prison.”

Chan lets out a long, heavy sigh as if he’s insulted that you have just called his room a prison—which you never verbally hinted at, he simply interpreted it that way. He reaches over to grab the book from your hand, seemingly giving up his reading time for you, and places it on his bedside.

“What are you–” You watch as Chan walks over to one of his mahogany drawers. “-doing?”

“I need caffeine to talk to you.”

Despite your bristling, he stays true to his words and finds himself a mug, a tea bag, along with a boiler. By the time Chan finishes filling up the boiler with water and turns on the heating switch, your legs are dangling over the edge of his bed as you puff up like a cat, baffled and offended.

“So,” Chan inquires, a steaming mug of tea in his hand. “What’s up?”

“I find your current state distressing to look at,” you elaborate with glee, a glint coming into your eyes that Chan knows you’re up to no good. “Take a week off with me. We can go anywhere you want, it’ll be a short getaway, just the two of us.”

Chan’s back is turned toward you because he’s too busy searching for a spoon but you can boldly assume that he’s smiling. It’s hinted in his tone when he asks, “You mean a vacation?”

“Brilliant interpretation, Chan,” you smile wryly. “Of course, I meant a vacation!”

“No, you can go have fun by yourself. You have my permission,” he shakes his head. “I have things to attend to. Meetings, banquets, important business transactions. You know how boring the mafia lifestyle is.”

You still, voice low and suppressed in something Chan can’t seem to grasp at. “You’re going back to your family.” It’s barely a movement, a small enough action. Any passerby would think that you have only faltered a little but Chan has observed you for a good while now to notice you’re holding your shoulders back from trembling.

“I am going back to my family,” he repeats calmly. “Only for a week, though. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“Chan, I know they want to see me.”

Chan tries not to let anything show on his face. “And they may very well kill you because that is what they are. Godawful, egoistic, and incapable of compassion.”

“Let me go with you, I—” you begin, though you cut yourself off almost instantly. The room is suddenly steeped in silence, unwieldy at the absence of your words. Every noise seems amplified in the quiet: the boys’ chatters echoing dully from the living room, the ticking hands of the clock, and every breath you take to calm the anxiety in your rib cage.

I do not fear death, sickness, or anyone’s hatred. What I fear most is losing you, Chan. It’s all so beyond you because a year ago, you were a thief, taking things as you please and sending them away when they’re no longer of use for your benefit. Now there is someone who you will live for and his kiss you will kill for, his laugh you will die for.

“Chan, do you have any idea what I would turn into if you left me?” You have always worried loudly, from the volume of your attentiveness and the anxiety beneath your skin all lie in the tender manner of how you love Chan—the same goes for him, that you can be certain of.

“I will never leave you, Y/N. We will be okay,” he assures you, unbearably calm.

Chan is a liar.

second attempt —

Chan is supposed to go back to the Bang family’s estate with Yuriko for the New Year. Yuriko is the housekeeper whom he has retired for about a year ever since you came into the picture. The boys, especially Jisung, have been forced into keeping their surroundings clean because, for some wicked reason, they think you are absolutely terrifying when you’re upset about their muddy shoes dirtying the floor after a mission. Yuriko always giggles at that, her Young Master surely knows how to pick a partner.

“I’ve got word that your father wants you to back to the estate, Young Master,” Yuriko tells Chan when she finds you and Chan in the archive because you have insisted on reading about something you won’t say a word to him. Surely, Chan recognizes what you’re searching for but he doesn’t mention it.

“He said he wanted to make sure you are ready to take over his position. And there is a dinner he wants your attendance for,” Yuriko continues, hands clasped behind her back. You didn’t even realize when she stepped in and approached Chan—for a mere housekeeper to be so swift and quiet with her movements, you have long guessed that she’s not just any old woman to be hired by the Bang family.

The way Chan stiffens in his seat is telling all on its own. You are suddenly struck with the recurring memory of how Minho used to babble about how much of an ass Chan’s family is when he has had one too many drinks. “You don’t know how bigshot mafia families treat their children, do you? They kept the world from knowing for a reason. I’m surprised Chan didn’t turn out to be a monster like them.”

“Forgive me, Yuriko, but you can tell the old man to suck it up,” Chan says softly but his voice is dark, tense, riddled with a sharpness you haven’t heard from him in a long time—you were threatened just the same way when you had stolen his mother’s ring. Now you realize Chan only ever speaks so heartlessly if something precious to him is hanging on the verge of being taken away.

“Young Master,” Yuriko frowns for two reasons; firstly, Chan has never been able to decline his blood family of anything and secondly, there isn’t much that she can do to solve the problem at hand. She’s a mere servant for the Bang family; she doesn’t have much power to begin with and therefore, she can’t exactly tell them ‘no’.

“No, you can’t make me,” Chan grits because he knows, he understands it all too well. Unsaid words of all the things money can buy hang in the air like bile.

“Young Master Christopher, you must know what happens if you defy your father.” And there goes Yuriko’s final warning along with Chan dashing out of the archive, straight through the hallway and the front door of the mansion, completely vanishing in the white curtain of December snow.

Yuriko murmurs something under her breath, unintended for you to hear her. You continue staring forward, the file in your hands completely forgotten. “He can come home with me,” you say without actually thinking about it until she turns to stare at you, expressionless before breaking into a fit of giggles.

“I think Young Master would like that.”

With that, you set off to find Chan.

“No one will love you unconditionally like we do.” “You belong to us, so do as we say.” “Work to kill, kill or you’ll die. You were born to kill, it’s a gift that not everyone receives.” “The world will bow before you and sway the way you want it but you’ll have to-”

“I don’t want any of that,” Chan hisses but the voices keep coming back louder, harsher, with more bite than he has ever heard from them. “None of you ever gave me anything that matters! You just can’t admit that you made me a murderer!!”

The snow around him sinks with each step he takes, their words still echoing in his mind and sending shivers down his spine, driven so deeply inside his skull that he wishes he could have nothing of this reality. “Be mindful of yourself. Control it.” “Your fangs and claws are too sharp for you to be swinging just at anyone,” he hears them again

His nose burns in the cold but Chan doesn’t notice something warm and wet trickle down his cheekbones. “You never cared about restraint. You said I must kill or I would die. You all just want to possess me, you want me not as an heir but as a commodity!!”

“It’s how we’ve been running this family. It’s how we keep things in order. You’re one of us, Christopher, you are this family.”

With a huff, Chan eventually gives in and listens because he has no other choice but to; he slides down against concrete with a white-out vision, a quivering figure with nothing on but his cardigan. “Then you’re just as godawful as any of them,” he tells himself, knees curling against his chest, almost justified in his own lie that he wants to burst out laughing.

Chan knows they have made him more of a weapon than a child, more of a monster than a man and he is stuck with it for good. He has been holding onto life just because he can, not so much that he wants to. Because he never truly wanted anything before or was wanted in any way.

“Oh my god, you’re a fucking man-child!”

He hears someone’s nagging from afar and ignores it, hugging himself impossibly tighter because asking for comfort is unacceptable, they taught him so. “Chan!!” He hopes it goes away with all of the other voices.

It doesn’t. Instead, it comes closer in a humane form, boots crunching against the snow and warm breaths sounding rhythmically. “It’s been an hour. Do you have any idea how worried we all were- how worried I was?! What the actual hell,” you snap. “Now I’m going to hear all this shit from Seungmin again because I let you run off and he’s too terrified of you to properly lecture you. God-”

Your rambles cut off when you kneel down next to him, rummaging for a scarf, a pair of gloves, yet another pair of gloves, his puffer jacket, and a hat from your bag. Chan quietly watches as he tries to blink away the oncoming tears but he can’t—they keep coming. He doesn’t reply when your scolding goes on because even though your voice is sharp, Chan can catch the worry hidden along the edges. Being cared for and cherished like this has made him realize how much he doesn’t want to come back to his family and he wants to cry like he’s the fourteen-year-old boy who used to refuse to pick up a gun all over again.

A child who was unable to stuff down the overwhelming agony and grief forced upon him. A child who was weaponized. A child who was threatened into killing his own mother. “If you can’t kill what you hold near and dear, you’ll never be able to kill anyone to save yourself.”

“Chan?” you call out to him, unbearably soft. There’s a certainty, a sort of gentleness in the way his name is said that only makes his tears come hotter, more and more of it because your love feels big, overwhelming.

Chan hates crying so he never did, not when they had locked him up in his room, not when they had starved him because of his disobedience, not when they had made him pull the trigger with the gun’s mouth pressing against his mother’s chest. Chan hates crying but it seems to be all he’s doing now.

You’re wrapping him up so gently and trying to warm him up because you know he’s just as human as any mundane individual out there. Humans shiver when the temperature drops, they shed tears when they’re upset, and they bleed and bruise at the right amount of impact. That’s why humans are so clingy toward each other so they can prevent harm from coming the other person’s way. Because no one enjoys getting hurt and there is no good reason to voluntarily get hurt; it sounds like common sense but Chan never grew up with such things. He never came to think he was deserving of such things.

“Chan, come home with me. Forget your family. I don’t need to know about them,” you smile at him, somehow empathetic and so understanding when Chan has barely given you an explanation, when he is desperate to fill the silence but he knows his voice will be weak with tears, stumbling, and pitching all over the place.

Chan sniffles, finding the courage to say something back because he wants to, not because he feels like he has to, “Can I really…come-come home with you?”

“I’m sure the girls wouldn't mind, they might be a little annoying. Yeji, though, can be wary of strangers,” you shrug, something so relaxed about your posture tells him that you have learned to accept something without telling him.

A breathy chuckle. “Especially when they’re a mafia leader.”

An exhale. Chan shudders when you embrace him wholly—every moment of pride and arrogance, betrayal and hurt that he has been boxing away—as the beautiful mess that he is. You’re the safest person on the face of Earth not because you are on equal terms with him in power but because you never care about those things. You will let him break something, burn something down, cry, and laugh however he pleases but you won’t ever let go of his hand. You never ask him for anything in return while continuing to save him over and over again.

He’s so unbelievably lucky, Chan thinks but doesn’t say it aloud, instead, he tells you, “If you’ll have me.”

The night after you drive Chan back to your mansion, the place goes up in flames. Only you are able to open your eyes to see the next daylight.

“Welcome home,” you want to whisper but can only watch a last smile bloom on the face of a ghost amidst the orange blaze.

third attempt —

You decide to come home with Chan.

For a non-mafia family, it might go like this.

Meeting Chan’s parents will be the hardest thing you have ever done—and that is coming from someone who has broken through the world’s most modern security systems and got your hands on objects worth billions of dollars.

You will bow when you meet them, use the politest speech you have taught yourself last minute, and desperately try not to remember how Chan was forced to shoot his own mother as a child. They will pinch your cheek and call you lovely, chuckling at how stiff you are and offering you a ‘Come on in! Don’t mind the mess, it’s always how our house is.’

You will smile and you will play along because you want them to like you so badly it hurts.

Chan will gawk at you without even trying to hide it because you have given him a completely different experience upon your first encounter. Casual, timid, and quick with your tongues when it comes to those witty retorts.

They will then ask you, ‘‘What are your hobbies? Any sports? Instruments?’’ Purely in the Asian parents’ style.

You will be so nervous that you forget you play the violin and practice meditation occasionally. You will sit at their dinner table in their cozy, lived-in home, and rack your brain for a proper answer that might be deemed reasonable for a mundane girl. “It can be anything you do for fun, honey. No need to be nervous,” they will say again and you will give them a small grimace in return.

It’s probably deeply fucked up when the first thing that comes to your mind is ‘I retired from heists a year ago because museums are fucking boring so I have moved on to finding new and creative ways to eliminate anything that might be the cause of Chan’s suffering.’

“…You play the violin beautifully,” Chan will suggest quietly beside you, his hand laced with yours beneath the table. “And you interrupt my reading time whenever you need attention.”

“I…I like to be with you,” you will finally find the courage to say with a firm squeeze of his hand, and the strength to smile when his eyes widen faintly, flustered yet not surprised.

Still, it doesn’t matter whether Chan was born from a mafia family. You don’t hesitate to hold his hand beneath the table when Chan tenses up from the disappointed gaze of his father, lean over ever so slightly, and whisper, “I like to be with you.” He almost gasps but refrains. “Wherever we are. As long as you allow me to stay by your side.”

For once, Chan lets himself think that he won’t fuck up something before he even gets to have it in his arms.

You did come home with Chan even if the dinner is anything but cozy and mundane. Their smiles are cold porcelain, a familiarity with death so staggering you feel nauseous. They are all here, though. Every single one of them. “I’ll be back,” you say and excuse yourself to use the restroom, he assumes.

Chan finds an uneasy slick in his throat, almost thick like blood when he sees a bright thing in your eyes. He lets you go anyway. Will things happen differently if he holds you back?

Minutes after your withdrawal from the dinner table, an explosion goes off downstairs. The mansion quivers with a long string of rumble, a horrible feeling looming over everyone in the room like an ugly shadow. Though, no one bats an eye. Maintaining such a high position in the Underworld for so long is more than enough for the bounty on each of their heads to go up to millions of dollars.

As much as Chan detests his blood family, he doesn’t want to die here, a horrendous place for his corpse to be found. So he stands as the rest of the room begins arming themselves, doing his best not to pay any heed to his father, and bolts downstairs.

In situations like this, he is taught to close his heart and kill. Hence why there was barely any screaming when the commotion occurred, only the metallic sounds of bullets being clicked into their chamber. Truth be told, there is a weapon vault on the main floor of the mansion. Chan knows the most efficient shortcut there and can run through any hallways even without any lights on. He did grow up in this terrible place, and now he will make use of that to get you out of here before anything else.

Chan arrives at the main floor and there is nothing but a giant hole and crumbled metal pieces in the weapon vault—or what used to be the weapon vault, blown up by a bomb it seems. Well, shit, he doesn’t even know how to register this. The entrance to his father’s most treasured place in the mansion has a three-layered door with an extremely lethal surveillance system, who and how the fuck-

He stops. He doesn’t so much as twitch. It gives him a moment of pure chill when the main floor has gone completely muted, both audibly and visually, like his life has just tipped off balance and leaned towards the bad part of a zombie movie. Upstairs, there is a cry for help and the sound of bullets continuously firing.

“My fucking god,” Chan curses and turns on his heels, steeling himself mentally while rushing up the stairs.

Upon arriving at the scene, it’s difficult to say whether turning up just five minutes earlier would have made much of a difference. Fuck, but if he had held you back, would things have taken a different turn?

There is a lot of blood. Too much blood to be explained away, and too much evidence to be traced back to no one else other than you. Well, to be fair, you’re the only person still standing and kicking aside from Chan anyway. The shotgun in your hand with a silencer attached speaks volumes, a knife between your teeth, and your left hand is fisted tightly.

“…Y-Y/N,” Chan utters, in disbelief. “You’re Y/N, aren’t you?”

You release something in your left hand and several fifteen-bullet magazines drop to the ground, the sound scratching his spine in the wrong way. The knife also hits the ground, metal echoing loudly against hard marble.

“You’re here, Chan,” you reply, like your hands and clothes aren’t painted red. Swiftly, you duck to fumble for something beneath the dining table. Chan’s gaze follows you suit, prompting uneasiness to crawl down his throat when he realizes everything is, quite literally, drenched in blood. When he manages to snap out of it, you are unwrapping something from a white blanket—Berry, his eight-year-old Spaniel.

You don’t look one bit surprised to see him—you have been expecting him. You simply keep on tucking Berry neatly into the blanket, murmuring something along the lines of ‘it’s over now’ and ‘I’m sorry I scared you’. Berry offers you a small whimper in return, still startled and recovering from the loud ruckus.

Chan inhales very slowly. Exhales. “What did you do?”

“I killed everyone here,” you say levelly, as if mass murder is no big deal. “You’re a little late. I thought your intuition would be keener than that.”

“This is no time for a fucking joke,” he snaps. Chan has snapped because he’s mad at himself. He has been living purely by his intuition for more than two decades already, without it he would have died a long time ago. Yet when it comes to you, he’s always the most irrational.

Your lips twitch like you’re about to smile but realize he’s upset. “You’re right, sorry.”

Chan moves further into the room, his shoes squelching with each blood-drenched step he takes. He takes the scene in once again and keeps calm because that is what he has trained himself to do ever since the first time he got kidnapped. When his gaze brushes over the corpse of his father, he tries not to think about anything just yet. What’s done is done but Chan can piece the scene together from the explosion downstairs—a bait that anyone will be eager to take and a good way to disarm your enemies—to the scattering of hole-filled bodies, their blood blooming against the marble floor like a grotesque bouquet.

The crux of it is you know all too well he will run to find you without question, lending you the space and time to kill whoever remains.

“Why?”

Your eyes sweep over the mass of bodies, dull and distant. “Does it really matter?” You don’t think it’s fair to say you did it because you love him; it will become a curse that haunts him for as long as he lives. Yes, you love Chan with your entire soul but you also simply want to act as you please, allowing yourself to have your selfish ways of declaring your love for him.

His chest heaves without any stability. “I thought you said you’re used to taking many things but you don’t take lives!!”

You cut right in, all glass. “Will anyone be able to do anything about it? Can anyone possibly arrest me, Chan?”

Chan shudders, a sour thing gnawing at the back of his throat. It’s a morbid feeling he knows will become recurring at night, on the bad days. Chan wants to be furious, it feels like a moral obligation to be. Then again, everything the world has learned about empathy is already torn up by his family, they smeared it beneath their feet like it’s common trash. In the end, all of his nightmares and source of fear amounts to this, a mass of corpses with no resolution.

“Do you want to kill me, Chan? If so, do it. You’re your own person, you are free.”

Your eyes have turned into ice, and suddenly you have become so intangible that Chan slowly grows afraid. He thinks of terrible things, Am I allowed to have you? What makes you want me so badly? Why am I different from any of them?

The sound of retching interrupts his train of thought. It takes him precisely half a second to stare at how you are folded over your knees, dry heaving at the marble floor with Berry fumbling for help right at your side. Chan rushes to you to keep your hair out of your face as you gasp for air, choking on stomach bile and body raking with shudders. Once his hand smooths over the fabric on your back, you eventually cough and hack out the last of whatever is left that your system rejects.

You breathe as shallowly as you can. Quiet wheezes, hollow breaths that pull in and out of your lungs too quickly. Chan rubs small, gentle circles on your back and doesn’t expect it when you snap up to look at him with wide, pained eyes as though you didn’t just murder his entire family in cold blood minutes ago, like you didn’t just take out the Underworld’s most feared lineage of demons by yourself.

Chan decides not to say anything, lets you lean into him shakily, and tries to figure out what you’re attempting to do with your hands. Dry blood makes your skin itchy every time your fingers twitch but you don’t mind it.

“I’m here, I’m here,” he finally whispers with you sitting in the circle of his arms; you’re shaking like you’re sobbing even though you make no noise and cry no tears. Chan lets you squirm with a wild mania in your eyes, frantic and lost. He can’t quite pinpoint what you want until he gets it.

You stop shaking the moment your head leans against the left side of his chest, right where his beating heart is. A pattern in his rib cage and a rhythm in your ears, relief so immense you feel like you can finally breathe. What you want is just to hear the sound of his heartbeat. It makes Chan feel a little exposed, somewhat scrutinized but he really doesn’t mind taking himself apart to hand his heart over to you.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble, your tone wet and warm with oncoming tears.

Chan presses his lips into a thin line, feeling like a hypocrite when he keeps you caged in his arms. “What are you sorry for, silly?” From the bottom of his heart, it’s abominable, he thinks—that even amidst such gruesome bloodshed created by your own hands, Chan is relieved that you are not hurt.

“I’m sorry this isn’t real.”

fourth attempt —

Chan is coming home with you. The childhood home you used to grow up in with two extremely loving, a little too oblivious parents who never once questioned their daughter’s occupation in the big city.

It takes time to adjust but Chan is sliding into your little family without noticing it himself. He manages to impress your mom with his cooking and discusses politics with your dad. You might be going delusional but you swear you saw him chuckling faintly at your parents’ terrible taste of reality TV.

The house might only amount to one-tenth of his mansion but it smells like fresh laundry all around, tender and soft, smothered in the love of ordinary human beings. So everything just feels that much bigger, a love so warm and overwhelming it stains Chan’s eyes with unfamiliar myriads of emotions. It takes him a few days to finally laugh a little louder, not refraining his speech to specifically formal phrases, and allowing himself to nag you in front of your parents. He even makes a sound of disbelief when you keep telling them he’s only a friend from work.

“Oh my god, why are you so salty about it,” you chide and close your bedroom door. “If I had said you’re my boyfriend, they would have started interrogating you!”

Chan sits on the duvet you have laid on the floor for him—your childhood bed is too small to share—and mumbles something morbid under his breath, “I am quite good at tolerating any methods of torture thank you very much.” However, he doesn’t miss the look your parents give you whenever you bid them goodnight with Chan hovering over you in a way that’s nowhere near platonic.

You snort, actually, no, it’s too bitter for you to even react. “The worst they will do is leave you out when we watch TV,” you grin to relieve the inevitably building tension, shit-eating and all.

“That’s cruel. You know I love reality TV,” Chan replies, completely monotone. He flings an arm over his eyes like he’s putting in effort to mimic a dying body trying to convey his love in a Shakespeare play. Wrestling with like ten other housewives to buy those eggs on sale for your mom was more of a workout than any gun fights he has engaged in.

“Sleep. Mom said we’re going outside tomorrow,” you huff, tossing him a teddy bear from your bed—the amount of stuffed animals you own is impressive, they easily take up half of your bed so Chan had to accept his fate with the duvet.

“I thought we’re heading back?”

“We will after going out with her. She said she wanted something from the bakery.”

Chan hums in response, his gaze skimming over the interior of your room again. Light pink wallpapers, white bookshelves and wardrobe lining the corners, and soft hues of blue on your bed and curtains to top it all off. “Truly, you are the designer of a generation.”

“Toddlers usually don’t like black. And I was eight, Chan, shut the fuck up,” you laugh, the sound so hearty it makes him want to bottle it and keep it all to himself like a child hiding his favorite candy.

“Hurts my eyes a little, but I like it,” he declares and unwinds for the day.

You never realize you don’t really walk around town every time you visit your parents. Maybe it’s because you didn’t have many friends growing up, meaning there’s no one to call up for a hangout, or maybe it’s because all of the memories you want to relive here are with your parents, in the warmth of their home. So you walk down the sleepy streets with laziness on your shoulders, somewhat at peace when Chan can’t seem to keep his eyes in one place, secretly comparing the imageries of bright, colorful Seoul with this hazy rural area.

“What is that place over there?” He asks when you stride past a sketchy-looking building when in reality, it’s a spa run by this really nice old lady upstairs.

“Did you go to school here?” He ponders when you glance at what looks like a middle school; no kids are running and shouting in the playground since it’s the New Year holiday.

Your mom notices how much curiosity Chan has for an apparent mid-twenties young adult so she giggles, offering to point out something she thinks he might be interested in, “That’s a small park Y/N used to play at. She wouldn’t leave when I came to pick her up after work.”

You can’t decide if you should scowl at your mom or burst out laughing at her implication that Chan, the leader of a notorious mafia group, should go and sit on one of the swings while she heads inside the bakery. “Come on, Chan,” you quickly make your choice.

Chan sighs, though the sound is fond because he sees a sort of excitement blooming loud and clear in your pretty eyes. You have observed Chan long enough to know when he has given in so you laugh, turning to your mom and saying, “We’ll be back in a minute.” The familiar promise melts Chan inside out but he doesn’t tell you that.

You accidentally drop your phone while walking down the stone steps so you turn away for half a second. And when you look back, Chan is seated neatly on the swing which is definitely not fitting for his age—his long legs dragging against the soil as his arms are crossed in front of his chest. As serious as he tries to look, you find the whole imagery so ridiculously unserious. He senses your gaze burning holes on the back of his neck so he stands, reaches upward, and lifts himself to sit on the metal bar that the chains rain down from.

“Chan, what the fuck, that’s not how you use a swing,” you chide, nearly rolling on the ground and barking a laugh. “If I take a photo of you right now, how dead am I?”

Chan doesn’t even need to turn his head. “What do you think?”

He looks down when your footsteps squish against the snow and he tries to imagine how a little you would hang around this place for an entire afternoon, up to no good things while waiting for your mom. “Concise as always, boss,” you purse your lips at him, nostalgia a heavy weight on the curve of your shoulders as you peer over places you used to designate as your hiding spots.

Chan catches something shifting on your face and he ponders; why would you voluntarily involve yourself in outlaw doings when you could have had a perfectly normal life? “When did you start stealing?”

“Probably when my parents sent me away for university. I hated it. School was hard and the expenses were awful for their bank accounts but they wouldn’t tell me that,” you mutter and decide to join him, legs dangling over the edges, a confession dragged from your lips unwillingly.

Chan scoots a little closer, a hand reaching over to your left side to keep you from falling. “And you figured you were pretty good at it?”

“Nothing to be proud of, obviously,” you shake your head and can’t help a small grin. “Okay, maybe just a little. I was making money from racing on the side as well.”

It takes him a moment to register your words when surprise halts the words in his throat. No wonder you’re better at handling car chases than any of his teammates who have been involved in this business for years. You look over at him, seeing that he’s having trouble reacting so you pinch his nose teasingly, “I know, so sexy, ain’t it?”

Chan rolls his eyes, neglects the warmth spreading on his cheeks, and simply sits with you. The swing creaks and groans beneath the weight of two adults, rust staining his hand when he lifts it to check.

“It was enough money for me to graduate and I was fine with that. Mind you I was always the top of my class,” you scoff, thinking of long days when you used to get little to no sleep, of when you had mustered the best smiles for your parents through FaceTime, of how you had begun not caring for how much money the jewels you had stolen were worth.

None of it matters anymore, you think as you lean into Chan, and he lets you. “I’ll guess this, you were homeschooled?”

Chan doesn’t answer immediately as realization tightens his ribs. You don’t talk about home or how you grew up, and Chan doesn’t talk about his parents. Perhaps you both are similar in that way so neither of you mind when the other person never initiated it. “I was. Everything I ever learned was taught in that forsaken mansion. Most of it, actually.”

“Everything?”

“You can’t run away from what you’re surrounded with,” he says, and there’s a chilling edge to it, an icy kind of shiver that makes your fingers more numb than the winter cold ever can.

“Chan, you’re not them,” you declare out of the blue, eyes crinkling up in adoration. “You are free, okay? No matter how hard they try to ruin you, you can’t become them.”

When you look up again, his eyes have a glassy shine when he says, “I know that now.”

“Don’t cry,” you huff out a breath.

“I’m not crying,” Chan shakes his head slowly, voice suspiciously shaky. “I guess I just thought you had a lot to live for and I was…you know, it was arrogant of me to keep you by my side.”

You laugh, a sharp, crisp bark of a sound that cuts right through his doubts. “Who do you think you’re talking to? If I wanted to run, I would have and no one could catch me, not now, not ever.”

“Well, I did,” Chan retorts, though there is no bite to it.

“Only because I let you,” you play along sedately. It’s the soft hum of your voice that makes breathing for him feel easier, and his shoulders feel lighter. When Chan exhales, it no longer tastes like the unfathomable, untouchable nightmares that he was so used to choke down, swallow, and not allow himself to throw them up as proof to show anyone else.

Your mom returns perhaps in about an hour, a box tucked in her arms and groceries hanging from her elbow. “Time to go back,” she yells from the top of the stone steps. “We need to cook dinner, kids!”

You don’t dare budge. Chan notices it and nudges your shoulder gently, sensing your discontent. “You heard your mom, come on now.”

“I don’t want to go back,” you disagree. “Let’s stay here. I want to go to the beach with you when it gets warmer. And diving, kayaking, too!”

“You told me to leave my credit cards back home. You’ll have to feed me and pay all of my expenses,” Chan reminds you.

“Guess what, I left mine at home too,” you reply breezily. Maybe you both need to find new jobs. You don’t think Chan should worry about that because there’s nothing that he can’t do if he puts his mind to it, he’s just that great. Chan is the greatest thing there is, the best thing that has ever happened to you.

You watch rosy lips part, brown eyes widening as his grip on your shoulder falters faintly. “I don’t deserve good things, Y/N. I can’t stay here with you,” Chan says like he means it. “Tell me to leave.” He really is stupid until the very end.

“If you’re worried about that, I’ll kindly decline my spot in heaven and go to hell with you,” you assure him, your voice chirping with mirth but even that doesn’t seem to elevate his gloom at all. A groan. “Fine then, as the most wonderful person alive, I now denounce us of all our wrongdoings. And I announce us to be the best of normal friends as normal people!”

His solemn expression crumbles and now he just looks straight up insulted. “It’s supposed to be ‘husband and wife’,” Chan nags while fighting off a grin of his own.

A light feeling burgeons in your chest. “I thought you didn’t care about that kind of thing? We’re already doing laundry and taxes together, right? It’s not like we have enough money to buy the rings either.”

“I suppose I’ll have no say in that,” Chan sighs in defeat, finally smiling brightly as he reminds himself of what he has, and what he wants to become for you. “But I like to be with you as well. If you’ll have me.”

You look back at him, wanting nothing more than to burn those words into the flesh of your heart. “I already have you right here, don’t I?”

Because Chan’s existence is etched deeply somewhere inside your soul. And you love him everyday for that.

❖ note (yet again) : hello there, if you have reached the end, thank you so much for reading! I wish 2024 will bring you and your loved ones nothing but happiness and great health! (no one asked but I really tried to simplify their speech of affection towards each other here compared to illicit & priceless because all they really want is to be normal people living a normal life)

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